Welcome to Central Fellowship Baptist Church. Today is May the 10th, the Lord's Day. We come into His presence with rejoicing, with praise, and adoration. Today, as we worship the Lord, I ask you to put aside all thoughts of this past week Thoughts of this coming week and anything that might be troubling your mind at this particular time, let's focus upon the Lord. To begin our time together this morning, our call to worship comes from the book of Psalms, Psalm number 51. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Together, hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities, creating me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Father, we thank you for your Holy Word. Thank you for these psalms of confession, confession of sin. May we see today the wonderful promises of confessing our sins and what you do in response to our repentance and confession. Be with us today in this time of worship. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Well, let's sing together the song, I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art. I greet thee, who my sure redeemer art. I only trust and Savior of my heart. Who paid this honor? No, for my poor sake. I pray Thee from our hearts of cares today. of mercy and of grace, reigning omnipotent in every place. So come, O Israel. ♪ Shine on us with the light of thy pure day ♪ ♪ Thou art the light by which alone we live ♪ ♪ And all our substance and our strength we see ♪ Sustain us by thy faith and by thy pow'r, and give us strength in every trying hour. Our hope is in no other save in Thee. Our faith is built upon Thy promise free. Lord, give us peace and make us calm and sure, that in thy strength we evermore Good morning. As we continue in the worship of our Lord and Savior, may we turn our attention toward these verses from Psalm 32. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Join me in prayer. Father in heaven, Lord, we are grateful to be reminded of this wonderful, undeserved display of your grace. Lord, as we continue through our service this morning, Lord, I pray that those that are in Christ will be reminded of this unmerited favor And for those apart from Christ, Lord, I pray that their eyes be open to the truth of your gospel. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's sing together, The King of Love My Shepherd Is. is, whose goodness never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, ♪ Forever ♪ ♪ Where streams of living water flow ♪ ♪ My ransomed soul be leadeth ♪ ♪ And where the verdant pastures grow ♪ Through celestial Eden, Perverse and foolish of thy strength, ♪ In love he sought me ♪ ♪ And on his shoulder gently lay ♪ ♪ And home rejoicing brought me ♪ ♪ With death's dark death ♪ will, with thee, dear Lord, beside me. Thy rod and staff, thy comfort still, thy cross before to guide me. Praise ye so, and oh, what transport of delight from thy pure chalice flow. Through all the length of days, thy goodness faileth never. Good shepherd, may I sing thy praise. Praise the Lord for those gospel-saturated, scripture-saturated hymns. Every Sunday morning we take a few minutes and we look at a catechism. Right now we're in the Heidelberg Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism comes in three sections. Section one is the misery of man, and we've already covered this. It speaks about man's fallen condition. and how by choice we all have chosen sin. Our Father, our earthly Father, Adam, The Bible tells us that he is our federal head, and in him we sinned with Adam. And we brought upon ourselves, by choice, our fallenness, our misery, our suffering, and of course, our eventual death. Well, we see that God did not leave us in that condition. And I repeat that every week because I want it to be burned into the minds and hearts of all of our people, and especially our children. I want them to hear that God did not leave us in our sin, but He sent His Son, His only begotten Son, to come into this world to be the sacrifice and to bring redemption to man. Well, today we're going to be looking at question number 65, or excuse me, question number 56. Now, this question deals with sin. the forgiveness of sins. And remember, a catechism, to catechize means to ask a question about the Bible, about some doctrinal truth, and then give the answer. So the question this morning, question 56, what do you believe concerning the forgiveness of sins? Well, the answer to that question is this. that God, for the sake of Christ's satisfaction, will no more remember my sins, neither the sinful nature with which I have to struggle all my life long, but graciously imparts to me the righteousness of Christ, that I may never more come. into condemnation. Think about that. Think about that answer about the forgiveness of sin, that God, because of his Son, He loved us and His Son, and because of His Son's satisfaction on the cross, He satisfied the righteous demands of the Father. God has promised now that He will no more remember my sin, and I will never come into condemnation. Just to give us a few verses here that will speak to that truth, Ephesians chapter 1 verse number 7 tells us, In whom, that's in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. What a wonderful promise, what a wonderful verse, a truth that is, that through Christ we have redemption and forgiveness. Romans 4 verse 7 and 8, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Praise the Lord. John 3.18, He that believeth on him is not condemned. Thank God today that we have this truth of forgiveness of sins. Let's thank the Lord. Oh God, we bring praise to you and thank you that you have saved sinners, wicked sinners such as myself, people that do not deserve salvation, do not deserve forgiveness. But yet in your great mercy, according to your great riches of mercy, You have saved us. Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful truth about forgiveness of sins. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, on this Lord's day, what a joy it is to read scripture, to talk about scripture, to sing scriptural songs. Here's another one that I want us to sing together, talking about God is our refuge, dear refuge of my weary soul. Lift it to the Lord. I will shout my weary soul On heathen sorrows rise On heathen plains of trouble roll My fainting hope relies To Thee, Thyself, each rising beam, for Thou alone canst be. Thy Word can bring us be free. and gloomy doubts prevail, I'm here to call thee mine. The strains of comfort seem to fail, and all my hope seems love, there shall I cling, thou art my only trust. And still my soul would cling to thee, though cross may ♪ Come, God, with me see thy face ♪ ♪ And shall I see it rain ♪ ♪ And heavy ear of sovereign grace ♪ ♪ Be deaf when I proclaim ♪ Oh, may I ever find access to plead my sorrows in. ♪ Mercy's seat is open still ♪ ♪ Here let my soul retreat ♪ ♪ With humble hope attend thy will ♪ ♪ And wait beneath thy feet ♪ ♪ Mercy's seat is open still ♪ ♪ Here let my soul retreat ♪ ♪ With humble hope attend thy will ♪ ♪ And wait beneath thy feet ♪ Today's Bible reading is from Psalm 51. We see David has sinned greatly. More importantly, David recognizes that he has sinned greatly, and he's going to the Lord with this sin and asking Him to create in him a clean heart. And for us, in our sin, it's a good lesson. When we sin, we go to the Lord in deep contrition. We're broken by it. We see that in David. But we recognize that the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. But it takes a brokenness. We can't be flippant about our sin and our state outside of the Lord. So let's read this here with this understanding in mind, understanding this man, and then considering our own sin when we fall short. But Psalm 51 verse one, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, only you have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Verse seven, purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Verse 13. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar. and may God bless the reading of His Holy Word. Every time the Saints meet together here at Central Fellowship Baptist Church, we hold in high esteem the Word of God. We preach and teach the Word of God. And today, We're going to look in the book of Leviticus, Leviticus chapter number 16, for our message this morning. We talked last week about the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Well, today I'm going to talk about a goat, a goat. I'm actually going to talk about two goats. Now, I'm not meaning G-O-A-T, the greatest of all time. I'm talking about animals, goats. We know the Bible talks about the shedding of blood, the animals, the sheep, the bulls, the heifers, the goats, even the turtle doves. In God's sacrificial system, He reiterates to us, I say to Israel and then to us, that there must be the shedding of blood for remission of sin, for forgiveness of sins. And, of course, the plan of God was that His Son would come one day in time and He would die for our sin. But in the beginning, with Adam and Eve and the sons Cain and Abel, God established a sacrificial system that there must be death of an innocent one. and that death would point to one day God would send his son and he would be that sacrifice that all of those animal sacrifices pointed to. None of those animal sacrifices could forgive one sin, but only his son who would come in time and he would die for our sin. Well, today I want to talk about this goat. Now, as I said, there's two goats, but I'm going to talk primarily about this goat. This goat is in a wilderness, as you see, and even the carcass, the bones of animals dead, This goat, how does he get here? This is not his habitat. What is that on his head, that red crimson color? Well, we're going to talk about this goat today. I want to entitle my message, My Sins Are Taken Away, Far, Far Away. I want you today to think about you that have been saved, that God has taken our sins away They're not upon us anymore. They're not weighing us down anymore. They're not troubling our soul anymore. Our sins have been taken away." How far? Far, far away. This is typified in the story here of Leviticus chapter 16. Let's look at those scriptures together. There's two scriptures that we're going to look at, verse 21 and 22. And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel. and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness." Verse 22, the goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area. and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness." That's what this goat is portraying, this goat in the wilderness. Today I want to restrict my thoughts to three things as we look here at Leviticus chapter number 16. First of all, I want you to notice today the death of an innocent one. Now, you notice there it's talking about the live goat. That's the one that we've got pictured here. which that infers there's a dead goat. Remember, there's two goats in this particular sacrificial system that God has told Aaron to do, to obey. The first goat must be killed. An innocent one must die. An innocent one must shed its blood, or have its blood shed. And the Bible, in chapter 16, Leviticus talks about all those things regarding the dead goat, the killed goat. So the death of an innocent one is pictured all throughout the scriptures. Every animal that is slain is an innocent animal. The animal has done nothing wrong. The animal has not done anything to warrant death. But we see that an innocent one, a spotless one, one must die for the sake of sin. So this first lamb that we're not going to talk much about, but I do want you to notice that there's two lambs here. The first one is dead. The first one's blood has been sprinkled, and all the things that God told Aaron to do with that first animal's blood. But that brings us to our second fault. I want you to notice today not only the death of the innocent one, but I want us to see the transference of sin. Now I've highlighted there verse 21. I want you to notice the two things that are underlined. It says that Aaron is going to lay both his hands on the head of the live goat. And he shall put them, the sins of the people, on the head of the goat and then send the goat away. And there's a man ready, standing by ready, he's going to lead that goat, take that goat to a far, far place in the wilderness. But let's think about the transference. There's a transfer that takes place, a transference from the high priest Aaron to the head of this goat. Both hands of Aaron are on the head of the live goat. And as he holds his hands on the head of this live goat, Aaron confesses on behalf of the people of God, the Israelites, he confesses the sin of the people. Now it doesn't mean here that he confesses every little sin of all the people, but in a general sense, in the liturgy here, he prays for the people. He asks God to forgive the sins of the people. And while his hands are on the head of the live goat, And he is confessing these sins, these iniquities, their transgressions, all their sins. It says that he shall put them, that's the sins, on the head of the goat. How is that possible? What does it mean that he transfers these sins to the head of an animal, to a goat? Well, again, friend, notice the typology here. All of these Old Testament things that they did under the law were looking ahead. They were types. They were not reality. No animal in the Old Testament could forgive anybody's sin. But these were atoning things. To atone means to cover. This was a covering of their sins until one day Jesus would come, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Not just cover, but takes them away. So we see here that the sins of the people, Israel, is transferred from them through the mediator, the high priest, and he places them upon this live goat. Now, here's the wonderful thing that we're going to see. This is the third thing here, is that our sins, their sins, which is typical of our sin, are taken far, far away. Verse number 22, the goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area. And there the guy that leads them out, leads the goat out, he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness. That goat will never be able to find its way back. That goat will die in the wilderness. That goat possibly will be eaten by a wild animal. But the point is, is that God has transferred the sins of the people to this innocent one. One has already died and has been sacrificed, but this second, called the scapegoat, the one who now takes the sin away from the camp of Israel and now takes those sins far, far away. Those sins will never visit God's people again. This scapegoat takes away the sin. Oh friend, today can you rejoice Can you rejoice that God has forgiven you of your sin? That his own son, not a goat, but a lamb, his own son died in our place. The innocent one, he died for our sin. But not only did he die for our sin, but he has taken our sin away. I like the way that Mike Livingston has put this, and I'll share this with you here, all the things that God does for us. He saves us. But the question is, has your sin, have your sins been taken away? Notice what Mike says about our sins being forgiven and taken away and all the things. He talks about how God promises to forgive our transgressions. There in the book of Psalm, David sought and received God's forgiveness. The Hebrew word for forgiven literally means lifted off. The image portrayed in John Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress, Bunyan's protagonist, Christian, was weighed down by the burden of his sin. Then when he comes to the cross, the sin burden fell from his shoulders, rolled down a hill, and disappeared into an empty tomb. Praise the Lord that God forgives our transgression. He lifts those sins off of us. But God also covers our sin. Psalm 32 and Romans 4-7 talks about that. The imagery here is taken from the Day of Atonement, which we've been reading about here. On this day, the high priest took blood from a sacrificial animal, carried it to the most holy place, sprinkled it on the mercy seat. of the Ark of the Covenant, which was a chest that contained the Ten Commandments, the sprinkled blood symbolically covered the broken law and shielded the sinner from judgment. God covers our sin. Thirdly, He does not charge us with iniquity. Again, Psalm 32 and Romans 4, 8. This is what God does not do with our sin. He no longer counts our sin against us. That word charge is a bookkeeping term. This is the imagery that Paul used in Romans chapter 4. God charges our sin to Jesus' ledger, he who bore our penalty, and writes Jesus' righteousness into our ledger and credits us with his righteousness. We're not charged with our iniquity. Instead, God gives us the righteousness of Christ. But that's what God does with our sin. He does not charge us. The Bible even tells us that He removes our sin from us. Psalm 103, 12. How far does God remove our sin from us? As far as the east is from the west. That's an immeasurable distance. East and West will never meet. God takes our sins away. Number five, he washes our guilt and cleanses us from our sin. That's what it says in Psalm 51. It's what it says in Isaiah 1. Come, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. You see, sin leaves a mark or a stain that only God can wipe away. He washes it away completely, praise the Lord. Number six, He throws all of our sins behind His back. That's what Isaiah 38, 17 says in a metaphorical sense. It says that God puts all of our sins behind His back. so that he does not see them anymore." Oh, the preciousness of the forgiveness of God for our sin when we trust Jesus, God's Son, as our Lord and Savior. Number seven, he sweeps away all of our transgressions. That's the image in the book of Isaiah 43 and 44. Our unconfessed sin hangs over us like a dark cloud, but God promises to sweep them all away like the rising sun burns away the morning mist. Number eight, He remembers our sins no more. That's Isaiah 43, Jeremiah 31, Hebrews 8, and Hebrews 10. When God forgives us of our sins, He forgets them. That means He no longer holds our sins against us. God remembers them no more. And number nine, he cast all of our sins in the depths of the sea. That's what Micah the prophet says in chapter seven. God cast or he hurls our sins into the sea where they sink like a stone. Such an act of grace calls Micah to ask the question, who is a God like you? that forgives our sins and throws them into the sea of forgetfulness. Praise God for His forgiveness. And then number 10, the scriptures tell us that Jesus, he nailed our sin debt to the cross. Colossians 2, 14. God not only erases our sin debt, but he destroys the document on which our debt was recorded by nailing it to the cross. We are forgiven because of the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ. The perfect one died for sinners like you and me. The perfect one took our sin as the priest did, putting his hands on the head of the goat God, in the picture, puts His hands upon the Son and transfers our sin, our guilt, upon His darling Son. And He bears our iniquity. He bears our transgression. He takes all of that upon Himself. Can you say with me this morning like we did last week, worthy is the lamb that was slain. Don't you like that song that we sing that talks about my sin? Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul. Oh, friend, have you had your sins washed away by the blood of Jesus? Have your sins been forgiven? Have you turned to the Lord Jesus Christ and believed upon Him and ask Him to forgive you of all your sin. Today, you can believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, oh, pastor, I want to be saved. I want to believe upon Jesus. Well, by faith, believe upon Him. By faith, call upon Him. Ask Him to forgive you of your sin. believe today the gospel. Let's pray. Father, I ask today that as we see this goat, the one that died and then the one that bore our sin and took the sins in the wilderness, may today some sinner, someone that is unsaved, someone that is still in their sin, may they right now believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. God bless you this morning for being here with us and hearing the Word of God preached and taught these last few minutes. But we want to close our service today with a song, What Can Wash Away My Sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Now we love the blood of Jesus What can make me whole again? Now we love the blood of Jesus Oh, precious is the flow That makes me white as snow No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my heart and this I see, nothing but the blood of Jesus. For I'm cleansing this my plea, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing can force it on us, no. Nothing but the blood of Jesus, God of God. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. God bless you for being with us this morning. I pray that God has spoken to you, that he has ministered through his word to you. And if we can be of any help to you, please let us know. We'd love to be able to minister to you in some way in the days ahead. When are we going to be coming back? We're not sure. Possibly in the next few weeks. There are some things that we will decide upon, the elders of the church, about when we will resume services here at the church building. But we'll let you know about those things in the coming days. Now, as we leave this time of worship together, we want to think about these scriptures as our benediction. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Oh, but there's a wonderful verse nine. If we confess our sins, that word confess say the same thing that God has already said. If we'll confess our sins, he is faithful and just. to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Meditate, think about, ponder that today in Jesus' name. God bless you. Till we meet again.