And for this seasonable opportunity to conclude the morning message, we're in Luke chapter 9. And the passage before us is really something of a pivotal text in the life of Jesus, as Luke relates it especially, because it was in this passage where Jesus, for the first time, begins to explain the nature of his mission, or at least the first phase of his mission associated with his first coming. After having asked his disciples whom the crowds said he was, and then whom they said he was, and eliciting from Peter that confession, Thou art the Christ of God, warning them not to published it yet. Jesus followed up that warning with this remark. This is Luke nine twenty two. The son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. Jesus is not telling them about his mission. He has through this dialogue established in their minds for sure that he is the Christ that he himself knew it and they believed it. Now he turns from who he is to why he came. But you know, the mission of Jesus is just as important as his identity. It's just as important. And Scripture links these two things. Indeed, the two things are linked here. I am the Christ, he says in effect, and I the Son of Man or the Christ have to suffer many things. They're linked because unless Jesus were the Christ, he would have died for nothing. His death would have been like the death of any other man. On the other hand, unless the Christ came to die, there would be no salvation. We could not possibly be saved apart. from the death of Christ. If anything, if there's any imbalance here in this typical evangelical witness, it's probably an under emphasis of the identity of Christ, almost to the exclusion of the work of Christ. But we have now this afternoon to consider the reason Jesus came. He came to suffer, to be rejected, to be killed and be raised the third day. In order to appreciate how jarring this news would have been to the disciples when they first heard it, we must understand that the Jews of that time had very high messianic expectations. The idea of the Messiah or the Christ was not a novel or new idea to them. They were familiar with the line of Old Testament teaching about this Savior hero who was coming. But when they read Old Testament prophecies about Christ, they had a different idea about what he would be like than the way Jesus turned out to be. And to some degree, we can sympathize with them, because indeed, if you do a study in the Old Testament scriptures about the person and the work of Messiah, The bulk of Old Testament prophecy about Messiah pictures him as this mighty, glorious, reigning king. A powerful figure who is zealous for the nation of Israel and who makes all the Gentiles be subservient to Israel in his glory. David was a fitting figure for the son of David, the greater son of David, who is to come, even Christ. It was under David's administration that Israel took over more and more land and became wealthier and more stable, gained more respect in the world. And then under his son Solomon, if anything, Solomon was even a more apt figure for Messiah because Israel had its most glorious period. under the administration of Solomon. And so the Jews knew all about that history, and they were looking back with longing to the times of King Solomon and the prevalent wealth and the peace in the land and the subjugation of neighboring Gentile countries. And they were thinking, boy, if that's what the Lord gave us under Solomon, And we enjoyed something of this under King David. Just think how great it's going to be when Messiah comes and throws off of us this Roman yoke and the high taxes and all the shame and disgrace we have because we're a small, weak, despised band of people. It's going to be great when Messiah comes and Israel's hopes will be realized. You see, they had this Zionistic hope that was very much attached to Israel as a national entity. And some of the Old Testament Scriptures certainly seem to support that point of view, unless you read them with a spiritual understanding. And you know, to some degree, Jesus in his teaching and miracles tended to stoke these Zionistic aspirations. Jesus was a very charismatic personality. He was an attractive person to all kinds of people who met him. You could listen to Jesus teach for hours. was saying things so different from what the rabbis and scribes and the typical religious teachers were saying. Just when you thought you had Jesus figured out, he goes and tells another parable and you leave scratching your head and going, wow, that's amazing. I think I understand that. Oh, this is wonderful. People just love to listen to Jesus teach. And after that, his miracles and no one else was going around doing miracles like that. And so you take the climate, which was a feverish expectation for some great Messiah figure on the horizon to arrive and save Israel out of all his trouble. And then you take the advent of Jesus, who was so different and superior to anyone else they'd ever seen. You meld those two things together and what you have is a bunch of zealous Jews who take the world to Jesus and are pinning their hopes for world domination on him, using his miraculous power and his wisdom to bring Israel to a position of supremacy. Political aspirations for the nation of Israel through Jesus, perhaps, if he is the Messiah. And so, Jesus was immediately popular among the Jews. James Stalker, in his classic little book, The Life of Christ, written in the 1800s, he helpfully outlines the three-year ministry of Jesus by characterizing each of the years. And the first year of Jesus' ministry, he calls the year of popularity. Jesus had a year of popularity. But their carnal hopes were going to be disappointed. Because, as we learned, Jesus did not prove to be the kind of Messiah they sought. Jesus was really a big disappointment to them. I don't think it's irreverent for me to say that, because it's the truth. They had this preconceived notion of what Messiah would be, partly based on Old Testament prophecy. And they had hopes that Jesus maybe was that one. And then he didn't pan out in their view because he didn't fit the profile. God delights to surprise people, you know. Listen, I've known churches. Now, this is to go from the sublime to the less profound, but I've known churches that have been without a pastor. And they thought, now, what are we looking for in a pastor? And they pulled the congregation and they developed this profile of what the judgment of the church is about what kind of a man we need to be our pastor. And they said, well, you should have at least a master's degree and we want him to be middle aged, not too young, not too old. And it'd be good if he had teenage kids and they'd been married at least 20 years. and they develop this profile and then God sends the congregation a man or there's a man already in the congregation and they reject him because he doesn't fit their profile. Big mistake. You know where the profile for God ordained pastors found. Not by pulling the congregation or the community. Passages like First Timothy chapter three and Titus chapter one. If somebody fits the biblical qualifications and God providentially sends them to the congregation and they have a sense of his calling in their lives to be a pastor there. Then it may not be what you expected, but it's what God wants. And the Jews didn't understand that principle. They were not letting their understanding of Messiah be disciplined by a biblical profile. They had their own ideas. Then when Jesus didn't meet them, they rejected him. You see, they didn't understand two basic truths. Now, brethren, hear me. There were two basic spiritual truths they failed to appreciate, and this is why they rejected Jesus as their Messiah. Number one, they did not understand that according to the Old Testament Scriptures, Messiah has to suffer before he reigns. He has to suffer before he reigns. They were conveniently ignoring that part of the prophecies about Messiah, because they liked the part where he reigns better. You see this pointed out in 1 Peter chapter 1, for example. This is probably the best New Testament text along these lines, where Peter says, that the prophets of old have inquired and searched carefully, 1 Peter 1.10. They prophesied of the grace, the Christian grace, that would come to you, verse 11. Searching what or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ, or Messiah, who was in them was indicated when he testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. Now, you might be thinking, well, Pastor Meadows, that's a New Testament passage. You said in the Old Testament there were indications that Messiah would suffer. Absolutely. It may be less matter than the passage about the glorious Messiah, but it's in there. For example, there is the well-known passage in Isaiah. And actually, through much of the latter part of Isaiah, there are prophecies about the Messiah and what he would do. And not only would he come and bring about a great victory for God's people Israel, and you see that in chapter 52, verse 13, where it says, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. But right after that, the prophet says, just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man. That means his face and his form more than the sons of men. So he shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him for what he had not been told them, what had not been told them they shall not see and what they had not heard they shall consider. And then there's that portrait of the suffering servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53, who has believed our report and who has the arm of the Lord been revealed. The arm of the Lord being a label for Messiah and the Old Testament. And it turns out that this portrait of Messiah is Not so good, not so glorious. It says that he will grow up before the Lord as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness. And when we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. You know, one of the marks of Messiah is he'd be lightly esteemed by the Jews of his own generation, and he would even be hated by some of them. Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities. And then in verse 7, he was oppressed. He was afflicted. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. He was taken from prison and from judgment. He was cut off from the land of the living. They made his grave with the wicked. Verse 9. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. Verse 10. So these are terrible things that doesn't fit the Another picture of Messiah the Old Testament portrays when he was this righteous, reigning, glorious, powerful, wealthy king figure. Well, they couldn't figure that out. And so what they tended to do was emphasize the glorious part of Messiah's purpose and coming and downplay the inglorious part. Now we know, looking back, what happened. The passages like Isaiah 53 were prophesying what would happen when Christ came the first time, but the prophecies about future glory had to do with his return at the end of the world, even as Jesus explained to two of his wavering disciples in the last chapter of Luke. Look at Luke 24. And this gives us some insight into what even the best people among them were thinking after Jesus was crucified. In Luke 24, the post-resurrection Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And I will assume that the passage is familiar to most of you in the church. Remember, two of the Christian disciples are walking down the road and they were dispirited and disheartened and they were, what are we going to do? Jesus was killed and now what? We don't know what comes next. We don't know what's going on here. We had such high hopes for him and he got killed. I mean, they crucified him. And as they walked along the road, Jesus, the risen Jesus, came up alongside of them, but their eyes were hidden, were covered by God's providence so that they didn't recognize him. And Jesus said, what are you talking about? And they said, well, haven't you heard what happened? There was this man named Jesus. We hoped he was the Messiah, but he was killed. Didn't you know? Are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know? Isn't that ironic? Jesus is there with them, and they're saying to him, Don't you know what happened? And you see in verse 21, their kind of analysis of the current event. Verse 21. We were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. The inference is, well, now we lost our hope because they killed him. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. And so they also described to Jesus how they had heard that the tomb was empty and that really got them going. They didn't know what to make of that. And then Jesus reply to them is very instructive. Then he said, verse 25, Oh, foolish ones and flow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Are not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into this glory? Jesus is explaining the way to interpret Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. The suffering passages come first, and after the suffering comes the glory. And most Jews did not understand that in Jesus' day. They did not understand that the Old Testament Messiah must suffer before he reigns. And so when they saw Jesus being unimpressive and suffering they didn't see how he could be Messiah. Here's the second thing they didn't understand. They didn't realize that true Israel was not supposed to be identified by physical traits, but by spiritual ones. Now, this is a prevalent issue dealt with in the New Testament scriptures. Jesus himself corrected, described in Pharisees for their faulty theology here. And this is brought out into the New Testament epistles as well. It's basically the issue of how do you identify Israel or who is a true Jew? Who are the Jews? That's still a very controversial topic today. Who is a true Jew? Who are God's chosen people? Are they certain individuals which Are physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Or are they the spiritual children of Abraham because they have the faith of Father Abraham? Well, listen, the consistent doctrine of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament is in the latter. The true children of Abraham, the true Jews, the real Israel, are sincere believers, those who believe in Jesus Christ. Whether you're talking about the Old Testament saints or the New Testament saints, Israel, which is the church, the holy chosen people of God, are identified not by physical circumcision, but by spiritual circumcision of the heart. It's not a matter of who your parents were. It's a matter of, physically, it's a matter of who your father is spiritually. Are you walking in the faith of Father Abraham or not? Jesus told us we should go so many scripture passages on this. But you remember when Jesus arguing with the Pharisees of his day, he said they said they boasted, Abraham is our father. Jesus said, no, he's not. Abraham is not your father. If Abraham were your father, you would believe in me because Abraham rejoiced to see my day and was glad. But you don't do the works of Abraham. You do the works of your father, the devil. Those Pharisees were as much a part of the corrupt world and excluded from the true Israel as any Chinaman of that day. And we have the same doctrine taught in the epistles written by the apostles of Jesus Command, look at Romans chapter 2 verse 28. You know, in a way, I can hardly believe I'm even saying these things, because I never could have preached this 10 years ago. But see if it's not so. See if it's not right here in the Scriptures. Here, Paul is speaking about how useless physical circumcision is to Jewish people if they don't believe the gospel. If they don't keep God's commandments from the heart, their circumcision won't do them any good. Look at verse 25. Circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law. But if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcised. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? Now, you see, in their mind, The physical right of the evidence of physical circumcision was considered a mark of who was set apart and consecrated to God. And Paul is saying, well, that's the way it's supposed to be. But really, at the end of the day, doesn't obedience to God's commandments matter more than physical circumcision? If you're circumcised and you don't keep the law, well, then that just shows you're even worse than the pagans. Because you had the privilege, but you didn't live according to it. But if you had a man who wasn't physically circumcised, but he kept the righteous requirements of God's moral law from the heart, don't you think that God would count him as if he were one of the circumcised ones, one of the true Israelite? and will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?" They were boasting, the Jews were boasting of their physical circumcision and Paul saying, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you're not a godly Jew with faith in Christ and an obedient life to God's moral law, you should be ashamed of yourself because there are people who haven't had all the privileges that you have, and they do believe in Christ and keep his moral law. And they stand as judges over you because they expose how evil your wickedness is, even though they're not physically circumcised. Verse 28. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. For he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God." All right, who are the true Jews today? OK, Church, repeat after me, all right? He is not a Jew who is one outwardly. Say that. He is not a Jew who is one outwardly. But say this. He is a Jew who is one inwardly. He is a Jew who is one inwardly. Alright, now when people talk about the Jews today, make sure you explain to them that the only true Jews there are today are those who are not one outwardly, but those who are one inwardly. Because that's what the New Testament says, right? Does it say that? Am I hallucinating this afternoon? But the Jews generally of Jesus' earthly ministry days did not at all understand this. Even Paul himself, who wrote Romans, he didn't understand it until he was converted and he had the Spirit. Look at what else Paul wrote in Galatians chapter 3, by the inspiration of the Spirit. This is Galatians 3, 6. Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. Is that what it says? Only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. and the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham before him, saying, In you all the nations shall be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. Who are the sons of Abraham today? What does it say? Only those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham. We'll have our biblical catechism here. Who are the sons of Abraham? That's the catechism question. Now, here's the catechism answer, and repeat after me. Only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. Ready? Only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And then look at Galatians 5 verse 15. I stress this because, well, you know why, right? Galatians 5, I'm sorry, 6, 15 and 16. In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. Now. Even not two different groups don't misinterpret the text when he says. As many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them. Those are the ones upon whom God's peace and mercy rests. Those who walk according to this rule, that is, that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision amounts to a hill of beans, but a new creation is what matters, that is, being born again, a new heart by the Spirit. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk according to that rule. and upon the Israel of God. It's not a new group. It's another designation for that group. The true Israel, the Israel of God, are those who walk according to this rule, that circumcision of the flesh doesn't matter. Circumcision of the heart is what matters. Now, you have to understand that if you're going to make heads or tails of Old Testament prophecies about what the Messiah would do for Israel. All those glory passages about the great king who would lead Israel to triumph and vindication from all over all the Gentile pagans. Those have to be interpreted in the light of the New Testament doctrine. Who is Israel? Who is Israel? Who is a true Jew? One is a true Jew who is one inwardly, not one who is one outwardly. Who is the true Israel? Those who walk according to this rule, the circumcision doesn't matter. Outward circumcision, a new creation of the heart is what matters. You know, the New Testament gives it a different name than you ever read in the Old Testament. The true Israel is the church, the church of Jesus Christ. When we read about the Messiah triumphing for God's chosen people for the nation of Israel, by the way, if you I could. We could pause here and deal with many scripture texts, but here's another one that comes to mind. I just want to show you first Peter chapter two. Just look at verse nine, and this is written to Christians. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him. who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." These two verses are saturated with Old Testament language that if you didn't know better, you'd think applied to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's saturated. There are references here to passages in the Pentateuch and that is especially the Book of Deuteronomy and the Psalms and the Book of Isaiah and probably Jeremiah and then in verse ten, there are explicit references here to Hosea and how that his children had symbolic names that Israel was not my people and now they are my people and so forth. And what does Peter do? Peter takes those Old Testament prophetic texts and says, these are references to the holy people of God, even all those who believe that Jesus is the Christ. There's no longer room for two peoples of God, the Christians and the Jews. The Christians are the Jews, spiritually. We are now the people of God. God doesn't have two people. They're not two ways to get to heaven. They're not two ways into his favor, one by faith in Jesus Christ and the other by being, you know, the son of so-and-so Rabinowitz. And you're, you know, raised in the synagogue and circumcised the eighth day and you keep all the Torah. They're not two ways. There's only one way to be saved for anybody. And there's only one people of God. And we're identified by spiritual traits, not by physical traits. The Jews did not understand that. And even many modern Christians have not fully grasped this because of the pernicious influence of dispensationalism. And I don't want to digress too much, but dispensationalism tries to seal off Israel from the church hermetically so that Never the twain shall meet. That's one of the one of the primary characteristics of dispensational theology is a distinction between Israel and the church. They say Israel is one thing and the church is over here and the church is not Israel in any sense whatsoever. No way, no how. And it's led to the most carnal interpretation of scriptures and so many a failure to appreciate the glorious Old Testament prophecies that apply to us, brethren. and some idea that there's still yet to come in the earthly millennium political domination of Jewish people over Gentile people and some special significance of the West Bank geographically in the world and so forth. It's carnality, brethren. And you've got major Christian leaders which are embracing a political point of view based on that misinterpretation of who are the people of God in Israel. The people who thought that way are the same. That's the same mentality of the people who crucified our Lord Jesus Christ because he was not the kind of Messiah they wanted him to be. He was bringing about a spiritual salvation. for the elect of God called from every tribe, people, tongue and nation. If you understand that. Then it's much easier to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. In fact, I believe that's why Jesus brings it up at this point in his ministry to his disciples. Now follow this. He asked him, who do you say that I am? They said the Christ. And what does he say? Yes, God revealed that to you. I am the Christ. And listen to this. The Christ has to suffer and be rejected by the religious leaders of Israel and be killed and on the third day be raised again. Do you understand that about the Christ? I'm not going to climb up into some earthly throne and amass an army and subjugate all the Gentiles of the world to Jewish people. I'm here to build my church, a spiritual church. And the only way that can be done is if I fulfill the first phase of my mission, which is to suffer and die in the place of all God's elect. He told His disciples this beforehand so that when it happens, they wouldn't lose faith in Him. They wouldn't reject Him because He was not the kind of Messiah they expected. They would be expecting it to happen. He told them, this is what's going to happen before it happens. He was bracing them for the unpleasant future. Now, the specifics of his mission are mentioned in four verbs, but they're, I think that they're in two pairs that go together. He said the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes. I think that's a pair. The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected. And then the other two verbs, suffer and be rejected, are the verbs. And then the other two verbs are be killed and be raised. And I believe those go together as a pair. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the religious leaders. The son of man must be killed and be raised from the dead. And it's more obvious how those two, the latter two, go together as a pair. The Greek text could be just as well, maybe even better translated, suffer much rather than many things. The son of man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes. The last phrase here about the elders, chief priests and scribes, grammatically is tied into both of the verbs. So it has a sense of the Son of Man must suffer much at the hands of the chief priests and elders and scribes, and the Son of Man must be rejected by the chief priests and elders and scribes. Jesus was destined to suffer much and be rejected by these religious leaders in Israel. And this is a strong irony, is it not? The men who were entrusted by the people to be the spiritual leaders of the nation, these pastor-shepherd figures turned out to be the ringleaders of opposition to God's Messiah, he said to them. In John's Gospel, the irony is brought out very forcefully, John 111, speaking of Jesus. He came unto his own and his own did not receive him. He came into his own realm or his own sphere or domain, the world which he made, and his own people, his own people did not receive him. In other words, they rejected him. His own disowned him. His own people wouldn't have anything to do with him. They repudiated him. And think of what they owed him. Did Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was God in the flesh, was the one who created the people of Israel? He called them out in the person of Abraham from idolaters, moon worshipers in Ur of the Chaldees. He separated them from other peoples, told Abraham, gave Abraham circumcision and told him all the males of this household to be circumcised. And they were not to worship the gods or the Gentiles, but to be holy to the Lord. He rescued them when they became a nation in Israel. from Egyptian slavery. He set them apart after the exodus from the rest of the world and he defended them throughout the whole Jewish history. These are the people that when God came to them in the flesh, crucified him. The Lord had been faithful to Israel despite repeated chronic a heinous unfaithfulness on the part of Israel. The wife of the Lord turned into a prostitute. And when the faithful husband of their souls came to save them, they murdered him. These who belonged to him in a special way by the old covenant. These spiritually privileged ones. persecuted and repudiated their God in the person of Jesus Christ. It was according to their history and character. The prophets of God had always suffered persecution by apostate Israel. There was a long line of martyrs before Jesus came, and the culmination of their apostasy is seen in the crucifixion of their Messiah. And so, judgment fell. Do you remember what the mob cried out when Jesus was being crucified? And Pilate said, I am not guilty of the blood of this innocent man. And what did they say? Let his blood be on us and on our children. And Jesus said that the punishment of Israel for the martyrdom of so many righteous men leading up to his ministry would finally come on this generation. And you remember what happened in A.D. 70? What there was left of Israel through all She was not nearly as glorious as a nation as she might have been if she had obeyed God. But what little was left of that people, and what little land they had, and what little temple they had compared to Solomon's temple, was all swept away in the terrible, historical, cataclysmic invasion of the Romans under Emperor Titus in A.D. 70, one generation after they crucified Jesus. And God was done with them. God had preserved Israel through all that Old Testament period so that through them the Christ would be born. And having fulfilled His purpose to bring about the entrance of Jesus the Christ through the nation of Israel, God judged the nation and built the spiritual Israel The church has a distinct entity with people from every country, people from all over the world. Revelation 5-9. So this is all part of the divine plan. The Messiah was destined to suffer terribly, suffer much at the hands of the Jewish leaders and to be rejected by them. He was also destined to a sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection. In the end of verse 22, the last two verbs bring this up. The Son of Man must be killed and be raised the third day. The crucifixion was the stark evidence that Israel rejected Jesus as the Christ. But no doubt that as a whole, as a nation, Israel rejected Jesus as their Messiah. How do we know? Because they called for his crucifixion. But I have to say that the ruthless pagan Romans unjustly complied with the demands of the Jewish leaders and the mob in Jerusalem on that fateful day. But they didn't have the legal authority to crucify anyone. And so they stood there before their Gentile governors saying, crucify him, crucify him. And though Pilate said, why? What evil has he done? Eventually that scoundrel capitulated to the popular demand and gave them what they asked. And he could wash his hands all he wanted to in some basin of water. But the stain remains on Pilate and the Gentiles whom he represented, the Roman government. And what I'm driving at is this. The whole world represented in this howling Jewish mob and these wicked, corrupt Gentile politicians. The whole world rejected Christ. Jews and Gentiles alike. rejected the only one in whom there was no fault whatsoever and who was in his person the perfect embodiment of God's ineffable holiness. Mankind rejected Christ. So don't anyone go accusing me of anti-Semitism when I say that the Jews were guilty of the murder of Jesus Christ. So were the Gentiles. Everybody was involved there. to the Gentiles. They rejected him and they killed him. But God accepted Christ and his sacrifice. God accepted his sacrifice as an atonement for his people. Christ didn't die, of course, for his own sins. He died for the sins of all the elect. He died to propitiate or turn away the wrath of God from all those upon whom God had said his special love. By his death, Christ redeemed the elect of God and secured that redemption. By his death, he turned away the wrath of God from the elect so that God was not angry with them anymore. By his death, he reconciled sinners to God, specific sinners, There wasn't a potential redemption, potential propitiation, potential reconciliation. It was an actual redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation. Indeed, it took many hundreds of years before that was applied to us, in our particular case, as believers today. But our salvation was made absolutely certain, in a sense. by Jesus Christ dying on the cross in our place as a substitute so that God wouldn't punish us. And when Christ died, the Lord God spent his fury, his just and righteous fury against us who believe in the person of Christ and God was satisfied. Christ drank the goblet of the wine of the wrath of God dry down to the dregs in the bottom of the cup. And that's a hope for him. He was raised the third day. God is no longer angry at Christ in our place or at us if we believe. Hell burned itself out for us when Christ died on the cross for us. He extinguished the flames of hell for us to believe. And his resurrection was the public declaration that God accepted him. It was his vindication before the whole world. He was who he claimed to be. He fulfilled the first phase of his mission. God showed His pleasure in the work of Christ by raising Him from the dead. And now His atoning death and glorious resurrection is the basis for our justification before God as sincere disciples. That's the mission of Christ in His first coming. He accomplished what God sent Him into the world to do. And that's my exposition of Luke 9, 18 to 22. Now, there's not too much application here, at least very tangible, like what I usually am able to give you. But let me leave you with this thought. Every single one of you in this room who hears me now is aligned either with the church of Christ or with the world of unbelievers under the domination of the devil in rebellion against Christ and God and his church. There's no neutrality. You either believe sincerely that Jesus is Christ and he came to suffer and die for your sins and you're trusting in him or you don't. If you believe you're part of the body of Christ in its largest universal sense, If you don't believe, you're excluded from the body of Christ and you line up with the enemies of Jesus Christ. If you're in the world, if you belong to the world, I have good news even for you. There's hope. If you will repent of your sins and receive Jesus as the Christ and your Lord and Savior, He won't hold it against you. He'll forgive you all your sins, give you every good thing for free, especially himself, because really all good things are in him. He is the reward of believers. He won't hold it against you. Him who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out, Jesus said. And if you're already in Christ, then I urge you to continue adoring and proclaiming your Lord. And join me in calling the spirit of Antichrist to repent and join our ranks. For the glory of Jesus, who is a Christ, let's pray. Our Lord and God. By your spirit, we have gain some clarity and understanding your plan. We have. Come to realize from the New Testament, especially. The identity of Israel and the church and what really matters before you. And that Jesus is the Christ who came to suffer for our salvation. Lord, we bless you for this is not natural knowledge. Even as Jesus said to Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Lord, we pray for those still blinded by their own idols, the lust of the heart, by their own false beliefs and by the seduction of this world and the prevalence of anti-Christian doctrine and philosophy. We pray, Lord, you have mercy on such. Before Jesus comes back, we pray, Lord, you would call more and more of your elect into the fellowship of the church whose fellowship is with you and with your son. Jesus Christ, Lord have mercy. Save our own children. Save our immediate family members, our spouses in the case that they're unconverted. Save our extended family and our friends and neighbors and our co-workers. Lord, we pray for mercy for everyone who attends our meetings here at Calvary Baptist Church, and we ask that more who don't believe would come among us and hear the gospel and be saved. And make us faithful preachers. of this true gospel that Jesus is the Christ. These things we ask in his name. Amen.