to the first book in the New Testament, Matthew chapter one, and look at verse 21 there. I've worked on this several times over the years. Most, most important doctrine in this verse, verse 21. It says that Mary will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. There's a little twist here in another translation I found. For it is he that shall save his people from their sins. You shall call his name Jesus. It has a meaning in coordination with the work of salvation. For he, for he, it is he that shall save his people from their sins. That's the purpose of him coming into this world, to take their sin, to do something about sin, which you and I couldn't do anything about. We shut up to him. And God sent him to do that, to take care of that. That word, that name Jesus, of course, is a transliteration of the Old Testament word Joshua. And it simply means Jehovah's Savior. Or we could add a little bit more to that. We could say it means also Jehovah's Savior from sin. That's what he does. We read in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 5 and 6, John says, you know that he was manifest. He was manifested to take away sin, to take away sin. That was his work, to take away sin. And in him is no sin. He's sinless, pure, perfect. But he didn't come away to take away his sin. He came to take away the sin of those that God had given him in covenant. As it clearly states there in verse 21 of Matthew chapter 1. That's why he says, that's why he comes into that genealogy there, genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ. told Mary, you shall call his name Jesus, Jehovah saves. For it is he, it is he, no one else, it is he. No one else could do this. He alone can accomplish this. He, for it is he that shall save his people from their sins. As you'll find and no sin in Him, neither will you find sin in those. Now think about this. You find no sin in Him because He came to take it away, take it away for you, as a substitute for you, for us, who lay hold of Him, believe on Him, rest in Him, trust in Him, wait upon Him. So we could go on to say, as you will find no sin in him, neither will you find sin in those who believe on and abide in him. Think about that. Are you listening to me? Think about that. That's what this coming to faith in him is all about. We come to rest in one that takes care of the whole thing. It's he and he alone. They can do this. He can take away that sin. He took away my sin in his own body as he sacrificed himself on the tree. He did that for my good, for my salvation, and completely did away with it. Matter of fact, we read texts in the scripture about sin. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, your sin, those that are resting in Christ, their sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west. That's something to think about there. That means that you can't find them. They cannot be found. There's a pole for the north and there's a pole for the south. on this old earth, but there's no pole for the west, no pole for the east. And that's how far he removed our sins from us. As far as the east is from the west. You can start out traveling in this old world, going from the east to the west, and just keep on traveling. And you'll never find an end if you go west. You're always going in the same direction. You'll come back to the same spot and you'll never forever find sin. It's all been taken away, taken from us. God took it and put it in a bag and threw it behind his back into the sea of forgetfulness, never ever to remember it against us anymore. How can God do that? Well, once it's done away with, there's nothing to remember. That's what he's talking about there in the scriptures. There's nothing to remember. So it is sin that is the cause, you see, of our misery. And he come to do away with that. He don't want you to be miserable. He don't want me to be miserable. He wants you to be free from misery. And the only way you and I can be free from misery is to have our sins taken away. And Jesus did that. He did a blessing. That's wonderful, isn't it? That's wonderful. Dwell on that sometime. Just stop and think about it sometime. I don't think we think about these. We just take these things for granted often, don't we? These wonderful doctrines that we believe on and believe in, sometime we'll agree with that, yeah, I believe that. But we don't really give it thought much. We need to think about it, what it's done for us. It is sin that is the cause of our misery. It is sin that provoked God and brought his curse upon the human race. What God did, it was our sins that did that. So we had to be delivered. If we're ever gonna find happiness and joy and be free from misery, we're gonna have to come to know how God did that. He did it in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our only hope, is coming to faith in him. So he hates sin. God hates sin. He hates it with a perfect hatred. And we'll do everything to root it out. Especially he's going to root it out of his people. He's not going to put up with sin in his people. He'll get rid of it. He's going to do it. And he might do some work. It makes us all miserable in accomplishing that, but he'll do it. He hates sin. God hates sin. And he's not going to allow his people to live in sin. And so he'll take it away. He hates it. do you know in chapter twenty-seven verse twenty-six a curse it is a man uh... is the one who does not confirm to all conform to all the words of this law by observing them he goes on and says this and all the people say amen they agreed with that they agreed with that they didn't know what they were saying did they because they cannot absolutely cannot accomplish that work concerning the law in themselves. But he goes on and says, in Isaiah 59 and verse 12, behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. I wish we could get this cross. God's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. What's the problem here? He says, noise his ear heavy that he cannot hear. But your sins and your iniquities, your transgressions, have separated you from God, from you and your God. And sins, your sins, have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear you. That's our problem right there. He just will not put up with sin. He's going to do something about it. He's done everything He can be done about it. sacrificing his son. He's the one and only mediator between God and man. He's a mediator to put away that sin. He also says this in Jeremiah 44 verse 4 and 5, he says, however I have sent to you my servants the prophets, rising up early, sending them, saying, oh, do not do this abominable thing that I hate. He sent a message, don't fool with these other gods, these abominable things that I hate with a passion. Stay away from them. Oh, the world, yeah, the world may run after evil and do wickedness, but don't follow those that do evil. Don't follow those that seek after mischief. Stay away from them. God hates it, hates it with a passion. Hates those that practice such things. If you get mixed up with it, his wrath will fall upon you. You'll be troubled about it. God, he goes on to say, but they did not listen to or incline their ear to hear or to turn from their wickedness to burn incense to other gods. God said, don't do it, and he didn't pay a bit of attention to it. Isn't that kind of the way we are? Isn't that kind of the way we are? God makes it so clear, don't fool with this and don't fool with that, and lo and behold, we'll do it anyway. And he'll have to take care of that. And he does, he does. But Romans chapter one, verse 18, Paul makes this very clear to us. He says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That's pretty clear, isn't it? Pretty clear. So think about these things. Think about these things. You know, throughout the scriptures, There is that which God designates as the truth. The truth. Throughout the scriptures, he'll talk about the truth. Because we know God is true, don't we? But he'll talk about the truth out of the definite article there oftentimes. It is divine and above the opinions of men. We're talking about the truth. however wise and pious men may be. In the Old Testament, the admonition is given by the truth and said it not. Have you ever thought about that text? By the truth and said it not. That's important. Think about it. In other words, whatever it takes to Associate yourself with the truth, the truth, whatever it costs you. Costs you your shirt, costs you your coat. Sell shirt and coat and buy the truth. Means more to you than anything in this world, the truth. And who tells us that? Unless the truth, of course, must refer to God. who is true, but is it not called the truth, the truth? Hence, it comprises all, everything, it comprises all that may be known of God, whether declared by creation or made known by revelation, truth. Truth is truth. You know, Pilate had a problem with that, didn't he, when Christ said that, you know, stood before him, I'm the truth. He said, now, what is that? What is truth? And the bomb fuzzed a little bit, didn't it? But Christ didn't answer that question. He just let him go on about his business. pilot had the idea well you know this one over here says he has an opinion about what truth is and this one over here he has an opinion about what truth is and he wasn't very interested in it wasn't very interested in it at all but truth is truth no variation in truth the truth is definite it's absolutely invariable. You can't vary truth, whatever truth is. And God makes that so clear in his blessed book. So truth is not simply that which is held as dogma, that is, settled opinion or doctrinal notion. A lot of people think, well, we believe in the truth and we hold to the truth. But a lot of times they're talking about just dogma, just settled opinion, you know, and doctrinal notion. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about something apart from all that. It's separated from the opinions of men. It doesn't make any difference what my opinion is, what your opinion is. It's what God says that matters. What God has determined and established, that's what makes the difference. And that's what God came and sent his son into this world to do, to take away that offense, which is the lie, the untruth. You don't tolerate that. Don't want it in you, don't want it in me, any of his children. We've got to divorce ourselves from it. So Paul wrote to the Galatians, and this might answer that idea there. In 5-7 he said this, who had hindered them He asked him, who had hindered you that you should not obey, here it is again, the truth? He's talking about the gospel there. Talking about the adoption of the gospel. He says, who has hindered you? Somebody's come along beside you, followed me as I preached the gospel to you, and distorted what I said to you. What I said to you was absolutely vital. You've let that, whoever that character was or those people were, you've let them hinder you from the most vital thing that you could ever come in contact with, and that's the truth of the gospel. And there's another one truth of the gospel, number one gospel. Somebody said, well, that's just what he believes. I said, well, that's what he believes. Well, most of that's based on opinion. That's their opinion. We're going back again to what we're saying here. Scripture's very clear on this. We're talking about the truth, the truth. It's absolutely different. It's one thing and then opinion or things that are conjured up by the mind. It's another thing. He's not talking about that. It goes on. This truth is established. You know, judgment is coming upon Christendom. It is. Scripture says it is. Judgment is coming upon Christendom. And rapidly so, I think, in our day. But it is because they received not the love of the truth. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse 10. It's common because they received not the love of the truth. They didn't say that they believed not, they received not the love of it. There's a grave difference there between believing and and receiving the love of the truth. I love the truth. You love the truth? It means everything to me, the truth. I once didn't know an ounce of the truth, but one day God flooded my soul with the truth and separated me from this world of falsehood. Made me see that there's a difference out here. in the truth, the truth of the gospel, and the falsehood that so dominates the world around us. And once that floods your soul, the truth, the truth floods your soul, it separates. It separates. It has its power, its dominating power to separate you from what's false. It's not a mixture there. Not an admixture, no. It's one thing and then there's the other thing. And so truth, truth is coming upon Christendom as a whole. And it's coming upon, or judgment is coming upon Christendom as a whole because they received, this world received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Truth is the real way to liberty. Now stay with me a little while. Truth is the genuine way to liberty, freedom. You like freedom? Some folks don't want to pay the price for freedom, do they? But if a person knows the value of freedom, liberty, and whatever it costs them, They'll give that up, they'll sacrifice that up in order to gain that blessed fruit called liberty, truth. Truth, I love liberty, don't you? Love the truth, I really do. And I'm sure you do too. I'm sure you do. And then Jesus made that very clear in John chapter eight, verse 32. 36, he said, the truth shall make you free. The truth shall make you free. That's what frees us from sin, falsehood, dogma, opinionated ideas, truth, truth. And the more you're liberated by truth, the more you see the detriment of falsehood. and what it'll do to you, the effect that it has upon you. Truth cannot be separated, and keep this in mind, truth cannot be separated from the Lord Jesus Christ. One and the same. One and the same. Jesus made this very clear when he said this, he said, Who is the way? He was asked by one disciple, what is the way? What is truth? What is the way to truth? And Jesus said, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. And he made that very clear. You want to come to the Father, you must come to the Father by me. and that involves denying everything in this world that opposes me and opposes the truth that's in me. I am the truth. I am the truth. I am the way and the life. Made that clear, didn't he? And this, of course, is objectivity and also subjectivity. The spirit is the truth as having come from the glorified Christ. the Spirit. So in the three epistles, John, this is something that's interesting here, in the three epistles, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, the truth is constantly referred to an elect lady in those three epistles, especially the last two, 2nd John and 3rd John. An elect lady is warned, and I believe that elect lady is the church, is warned against violating truth. Matter of fact, she's told not to receive anyone into her house that oppose the truth. Or not to wish him, whoever it is, not to wish that person Godspeed. You can't do that, can you? You know, somebody comes to your house, tending, spouting off certain things, and you know it's not the truth. It's inconsistent with what God has convicted you by the Spirit. And you try to get rid of the bird, whoever he is. And a lot of times, we're not careful enough. We don't say, well, bless your brother going down the road. No, sir, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't pronounce a blessing on him. Now it's a curse on him because he is in opposition to the blessed truth of God's Word. You know, it is to take away sin, that's the whole purpose of God. gave his son in order to get that job accomplished. We read in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 25 through 27, Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the word. that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. That's what Christ is laboring for, applying that blessed doctrine of salvation that came into this world. Now, he shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from that sin, from sin. And that's his whole object, is to cleanse us, purge us, to take away every spot and every wrinkle or any such thing, and make us pure and clean, even as he is, even as he is. Think about that. that Jesus gave himself according to what Peter says. Peter said this in 2nd chapter and 24th verse. He said, Who his own self bear our sins and his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed. You get that? By whose stripes we are healed. 1 John chapter 3, verse number 8, he said this, he that cometh, or he who commits, he that commits sin is the devil, or is of the devil. For the devil sinned from the beginning, For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. And if you're entertaining the wicked one, Christ will come and visit you with chasing rod and deliver you from the power of the wicked one. He's in constant combat with the devil, the wicked one. And he wants you absolutely free because Satan is seeking to meddle with you and to hinder you from becoming like Christ himself, absolutely separate from sin. That's what he came to do. He that commits sin is of the devil. For the devil sinned from the very beginning for this purpose, the Son of God. manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You know, it belongs to God to set us free. Now listen to this. Stay with me here. It belongs to God to set you and I, who have come to faith in Christ, free. Free. And to be free, we're going to have to be free from sin. Our liberty comes from being delivered from sin. Sin brings you into bondage. Satan, of course, teams up with sin, the sin that's within you, and labors his best to bound you up in a state of bondage. And to get rid of Satan, to get rid of sin, will bring you into a free state, a free state. And that's what he came to do. So it belongs to God to set us free, to set us free, not only from punishment of sin and curse, the curse of sin, and the disquietude that we often find ourself in. You know, if you've been in a sinful state for a little while, You wonder why in the world you feel like you feel, well, sin's causing that. You gotta be delivered from that. This quietude, that misery. Sin keeps you in misery. From now on, it'll keep you in misery as long as you're bound up in it. Christ is not gonna let you stay bound up in sin. He'll get you out of it some way or another. That's just his work. So let us receive the thought deep into our hearts. It is for God to take away our sins from us. And he'll do it. The better we apprehend this, I believe this, the better we apprehend this, the more blessed shall our lives be. Sin don't give you pleasure. You may think so, but don't. You may have a little pleasure for a season, but it is just for a season. After a while, that season runs its course, and you're right back in the same fix as you were to start with. You gotta be free from it. You wanna live a happy life? Seek the Lord. Seek God till he comes and frees you from any sin in whatever state that is. that you're free from it. You know, all do not receive this. They seek chiefly to be freed from the consequences of sin, from the fear and darkness that sin brings upon your life, and from the punishment that sin brings. But they don't be free from sin, completely free from sin. or hang on to a little bit of it. Might give up a big portion of it, but that's why we're trying to hold on to a little bit of it. But you can't do that either. You just can't do that. That's thinking about this. See, on this account, they do not come to the true rest of salvation. They do not understand that to be saved is to be free from sin. Let us hold it fast. Jesus saves. He saves through taking away sin. Then we should learn, I believe, two things. If we really get down to the crux of the matter, we'll learn at least two things. First of all, First is to come to Jesus with every sin. Every sin. Psalm 32 in verse number five says this. David said, I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin." He had to come clean, that's what he's talking about here. David said, I had to come clean with God and my sin. He didn't want to give up his part of it, he had to give up all of it, everything about sin. And David wanted peace, he wanted peace and comfort and would be delivered from misery. And the only way was to give it all up and seek God for a complete cleansing from his sin. So that's the first thing. Look at Luke chapter seven, just for a minute. Luke chapter seven. Notice over here in Luke seven. You know this story very well, I'm sure. Beginning in verse, we'll break into the chapter here. Luke chapter 7, verse 37. Luke 7, verse 37. This is the case where Jesus had been invited to a dinner with a Pharisee, Simon the Pharisee, and he accepted the invitation. And while they were there in course of eating, dining, a lady off the street, a woman, it says in verse 37, in the city, who was a who was a sinner, a notorious sinner. When she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box or flask of fragrant oil, and she stood at his feet behind, weeping, and she began to wash his feet. with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. And she kissed his feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now, when the Pharisees who had invited him saw it or saw this, he spoke to him saying, this man, if he were a prophet, would know who in what manner of woman this is, who is touching him, for she's a sinner. Don't you think he knew that? Yes, sir, he knew that. And Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I have somewhat to say, something to say to you. And he said, teach yourself. Teacher Sayon, a little arrogance here. Teacher Sayon. There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. And when he had nothing with which to repay, He freely forgave him both. Tell me, therefore, which of these, or them, will love him more?" Simon speaks up. Simon says, and answers the question, I suppose the one whom he forgave And he said to him, you've rightly judged. And he goes on and says, you know, when I came in to your house, this woman, when she turned in, he said to Simon, do you see this woman I entered into your house and you gave me no water for my feet. You gave me, but she had washed my feet with the hairs of her head. Tears and dried them with her hair. He says, wiped them with the hairs of her head. You gave me no kiss. But this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but this woman has anointed my feet with fragrant oil, expensive oil. He goes on and says, therefore, I say to you, I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much, but to whom nothing is forgiven, the same loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. And he put her on her way, sent her on her way. Your faith has saved you, he goes on to say. See the difference in those two people there? This Pharisee was as rich as a church mouse. you get done all the time all the action cross all the keys israel is in one uh... in the sense of of passengers but he was a hypocrite he was a hypocrite he's saying he had no idea of uh... what she was all about he thought it was doing this to and they're not doing this and i'm doing that and uh... somewhat and sell and solve the problem but no He missed the whole point. Here's a lady that gave up all she had, the most expensive that she had, to minister to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. She knew what real worship was, true worship. And she entered into that when she went into that house and began to do those things for our blessed Redeemer. She knew what sin was because she'd been delivered from sin. And she even wanted a greater deliverance. All taken away from her. And so, the difference, that's the difference. The text over in Deuteronomy that I run across here that I thought made a good application, Deuteronomy 18, 17, and 18. And in this text, can apply this thing. The text says, and you say in your heart, Moses talking to the people, and you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand has gained me this wealth. Don't know. Don't know. Never think that. Never dream of that, especially in the context of salvation. Where are the people out here who missed it right here? I say, you make this application. So, no sir, it goes on and says, remember the Lord your God, for it is He, it is He who gave, who gives you power to get wealth. And it's He that gives you the power to overcome sin. You don't do it yourself. It's He that gives you the power to overcome sin. And overcoming sin is coming to the Lord Jesus Christ with nothing reserved whatsoever. It's coming to Christ and casting yourself at Christ, as that lady did there, coming off the street. And making it very clear, if I'm going to be cleansed and I'm going to be accepted and I'm going to have my sins washed away, I'll have to do it God's way. So there it is. And so it is you, it is not you and Jesus that must overcome sin, but it's Jesus himself, folks. That text is telling us that. Whatever you want to apply it to, but it especially applies to that idea of our sins being taken away. It's not, as I said, it's not you and Jesus. that must overcome sin but Jesus himself. It is always Christ in you, always Christ in you, the hope of glory. You know, if we would become free from sin, we would employ these principles that we've talked about here, and we would come to enjoy unspeakable and full of glory, the fullness of salvation, It is, let's be clear about this, it is the one aim of our life to stand always in the fullness and fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ. There we are, there we find ourselves cleansed from all that opposes God and all that offends God. Christ has taken it all away, all away, Christ has taken it all away. It's not this idea that most have of just coming to an occupation of teaming up with the Lord and getting this matter cleaned or straightened out. It's just trusting, trusting, trusting, always trusting, never get away from that idea, trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. All right, Steve.