The Epicenter of Eternity - Unwavering Faith in an Unraveling World

George Washington had just left the presidency in 1799 returned to Mount Vernon for his dream of finally being able to stay there, leave public service, and enjoy his farm and Martha It was December and he took great care of his place.

So he was riding inspecting um his very vast plantation, but the problem was that it was snowing, it was raining, it was hailing, freezing rain, and he was out in all of that.

And he wasn't as young as he used to be.

He came back, had dinner, wasn't feeling too well, had a pretty bad sore throat, but he went back out again the next day When he came back, he was really in bad shape, and by that night he couldn't swallow.

He was having difficulty breathing, talking.

Three different doctors came and they all did what you did back then.

You took bad blood out of people.

And three different doctors had ministered to him.

And consequently, during that period of time, they believed that they took half his blood. thinking that would get rid of the bad stuff.

So George Washington probably got pneumonia, but he probably would have lived.

Except they didn't understand that the blood was keeping him alive.

And losing the blood would end his life.

So December 14, 1799, he died.

Sir William Harvey was a Bible-believing man and one of the giants of science.

Sir William Harvey, living in England Had studied the blood in the human body because he read something in the book of Leviticus that simply said the life of the flesh is in the blood.

Well, he took that as a scientific statement and began to do research to see if some of the old beliefs about the blood were wrong.

And he went before the King of England and presented his findings, and Sir William Harvey today is counted as the discoverer, so to speak, of the circulation of blood.

Because we know, and it's been in the Bible long before all the time people were bleeding people, that the life of the flesh is in the blood.

In a way that's taken on some new significance recently.

Dr.

Kent Brantley with Samaritan 's Purse, been in the news a great deal, great representative of the love of Christ, huh?

Kent Brantley caught Ebola No doubt the most feared disease in the world at this point, probably rightly.

And Kent Brantley came back and, of course, recovered from that, praise God.

Yesterday, Nina Femme, who was the first nurse to catch Ebola, from the first man to die of Ebola in America.

Was released from the hospital.

President Obama demonstrated his belief in her recovery.

They had a big hug in the Oval Office.

And in her talk to the press, she said she's a believer in God and she thanked God for her recovery.

And she thanked Kent Brantley.

Because for three different people where there was a blood match, Kent Brantley gave his blood.

And nobody quite knows why these people have recovered.

Everything's experimental at this point.

They're still trying to figure it out.

But it certainly could be that the gift of one man's blood Could have helped save the life of another person.

Well, all of that brings us to the third secret of living unafraid.

And are you ready for a sh a fast trip tonight?

But it couldn't be a more blessed subject.

Because the defining moment in the history of the people of God Then, in the days of the book of Exodus, and now revolves around the blood.

I don't mean to be gross, but the book of Exodus.

Has blood all through it.

And you cannot study the book of Exodus without seeing the worldwide and personal significance of all of this about blood.

And why there would end up being a mountain of sheep and goats and bulls sacrificed and their blood shed over the centuries.

And what it would have to do with every person ever born on this planet.

Let's go to Exodus chapter 12.

And as the plagues have passed through Egypt, And God says now, this final and tenth plague that will ultimately show my mighty hand to Pharaoh, and he will let you go this time.

Has to do with the angel of death passing through the land of Egypt after all these warnings.

It is interesting that After his last no, Moses said to Pharaoh, I will not speak to you again. chilling moment.

I will not.

You won't be hearing from me again.

This was your last chance.

You never know when that's going to be, when God's last warning will come.

He said, I won't be back.

In essence, you've had your last opportunity.

Now, God says to his people, you'll be spared.

But you can't just be spared just because you're my people.

There's something you're going to need to do in order for you to be spared as the angel of death passes through the land.

Let's read.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt , This month is to be for you the first month.

Now, literally, we are now defining the Hebrew calendar from this point on, some 1,500 years before Christ is born, to this very day.

When they observe Passover, it is marked this way.

This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, of this first month, each man is to take a lamb for his family.

One for each household.

And I would just stop long enough to point out to you who is responsible to bring the atonement to the family.

Let each man bring the one who brings this sacrifice into his family.

Let's go on.

Then they are taking some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.

The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you.

No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

This is the day you are to commemorate.

For the generations to come, you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord, a lasting ordinance.

And if you've ever wished a happy Passover to a Jewish friend , that's what you were saying to them, whether they recognize the significance of it or not.

Now Immediately the blood is made the center of escaping the judgment of God.

Seventeen times in the book of Exodus, we have it portrayed that blood is the bridge to a holy God.

And there's a very good reason for this, which actually destroys the biggest lie that has sent more people to hell than any lie in the history of the planet.

But let's go to Leviticus chapter 16.

Leviticus being a companion book really to Exodus.

And here's how this is to work with the priest.

He'll slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people, take its blood behind the curtain, this would mean into the holy of holies, the place where God had said, this is where I will show up on earth at this point In this Ark of the Covenant, between the cherubim, in this gold chest , inside this uh chest, beneath the cover, Are the tablets of the law, which man has broken, a constant reminder that underneath the atonement, which made it necessary , Is man's rebellion against God.

So he will take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull's blood.

He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it.

In this way, he will make atonement for the most holy place.

Just imagine, one day a year, one time a year.

A man after going through elaborate cleansing, the high priest, one man chosen by God, could briefly go into the sinless presence, what represented the sinless presence of God.

The whole nation aware of this moment, carrying with him the blood sacrifice that would atone for their sin, to place it on the atonement cover This is not just something for the Jewish folks to remember.

There's a reason.

Remember all this is for us, 1 Corinthians said.

And then let's keep going through the passage.

No one is to be in the tent of meeting from the time Aaron goes in, the high priest, to make atonement in the most holy place until he comes out.

Having made atonement for himself, his household, and the whole community of Israel The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the most holy place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp now.

They're highs, because they they bore the sin.

They're the symbolic sin-bearers of the nation.

They must be taken outside the camp, and their hides and flesh and offal are to be burned up, because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you.

Then before the Lord, boy, what could there be a more relieving statement?

You will be clean from all your sins.

Of course, the sacrifice had to continue to be repeated.

Because it was only a hint of what was to come.

Let's go over to Leviticus 17, 11.

For the life of a creature is in the blood.

That's the verse that Sir William Harvey discovered that helped him discover the circulation of blood.

I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.

Notice the next four words.

This morning we had four words.

I am the Lord.

Tonight we have four words.

It is the blood.

I don't really want you to forget those words.

It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life When the blood goes through the human body, you know this , the heart pumps it to the lungs, the lungs pick up oxygen The blood moves through the body, deposits the life-giving oxygen in our cells, and makes a trade.

As it carries away the toxins that are poisoning us.

It brings life.

It takes away death.

That's what blood does.

And that's what God was meaning to tell us.

Here's secret number three of living unafraid.

We've talked about today always enthroning Jehovah.

We've talked about expecting the supernatural.

Appropriate the blood.

And I'm going to talk about what that means.

Appropriate the blood is a secret of living unafraid.

If you go through the book of Exodus, you can do it for yourself, you will just see so much of the book, once they have been delivered from Egypt, is all about all of these elaborate cleansings and requirements. and countless blood sacrifices for the people of God.

And there's one message coming through.

Sin kills.

Sin is deadly.

Sin has a death penalty.

It's that bad.

It's that serious The seriousness of sin is the first that I call it eternity changer in the story of a nation sacrificed for sins.

Sin is deadly.

Go with me to the book of Hebrews, chapter 9.

Hebrews 9, let's bring this up to New Testament days.

But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood. which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.

Let's keep going.

In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood, both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies.

There was blood on the implements.

There was blood on the on the brazen altar. outside the curtain of the whole that entered the Holy of Holies.

There was blood on the garments of the of the priest.

There was blood on the people.

It was like God says, do you get this?

Do you get how serious sin is?

Do you get what it takes to have a chance with me?

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood.

And now, this is an announcement to the entire religious world.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness You cannot enter the presence of a holy God with sin.

It must be forgiven by the one we sinned against.

It can only be forgiven, it says, with the shedding of blood.

Why?

Well I'll tell you why.

Sin is cosmic rebellion.

I'm a hijacker.

You're looking at a hijacker here I was created in the words of Colossians 1.

16, I was created by him and for him, and I have lived for me.

And whether I realized it or not, dethroning the God who made me.

God, you run the universe I will do my marriage my way.

I will do my business my way.

I'm I will when I'm uh yes I am selfish, yes I get angry, yes I hurt people with this mouth of mine, but God, you run the universe.

I will give you back some religion and some money and some service, and we'll be fine.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

One of my favorite columnist writes in World magazine, she said her nine-year-old granddaughter um was over to her house one day. uh look making pancakes with her and she had her three-year-old cousin there with her.

And um Andre heard a a an interesting overheard a conversation between these two kids.

The older girl and the little boy.

I'll just give you the conversation.

The boy.

Why did Jesus have boo-boos on his knees?

Girl.

People hated him.

Boy.

Why?

Girl.

They all wanted to be bosses of themselves.

But God is king.

Boy, we could take turns.

Really?

We could take turns.

Girl.

But he's the big king.

And he made boys out of dirt and girls out of ribs.

That's not bad nine-year-old theology right there, you know that?

But we all said, God, I will be the boss.

And understand this.

For a sinless God.

Us doing it our way instead of his way requires banishment from his presence.

By its very nature, without him compromising who he is.

It means banishment from God's presence.

Let's go to the Garden of Eden.

Genesis chapter 2, verse 17.

You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.

And we know what happened.

Adam and Eve had to leave that garden, leave what was the personal presence, the place of God for them, and leave there guarded by angels of fire.

You cannot go back into his presence.

Not now.

There's a reason that curtain was in the Holy between the people and the Holy of Holies. before you could go into the place that at that time was what represented the presence of God.

That curtain we now know was probably about four inches thick.

So it was pretty thick.

It was 15 feet wide.

If you could picture it, it was 30 feet long.

It weighed something, they stink, like four tons.

It took 300 men to lift it.

It was a major barrier.

When you think of a curtain, don't think of one of these babies.

We are talking about, and there's a reason God said in his instructions, put that there so anybody will know when they walk by that tabernacle, when they come to the temple later on, they will remember there's a wall between us.

And you cannot go through there.

Somebody has to to put the blood on the atonement cover and bring it to where I have shown up in essence, where I meet you But only briefly and only once a year.

Now let me just say personally, you cannot get away with trivializing your sin when you know it takes death to pay for it.

You can't trivialize it.

You can't excuse it.

You can't blame your wife for it.

Can't blame your husband for it.

You can't blame your past for it.

Can't blame how other Christians treated you for it.

You can't minimize it, you can't rationalize it, not when it takes death to pay for it.

Now here's the lie that has sent more people to hell than any other.

You can atone for your sin by being good.

That's what the all the religions of the world are doing.

That we have different ways.

I mean, if you want a religion, take your pick.

There are a number of good ones.

Buddhism gives you some good things to do.

Hinduism gives you some good things to do.

Every religion.

Catholics have Catholic good things to do.

Protestants have good Protestant good things to do.

They're very nice.

All these are good things to do.

If what I need to do is to pay a bill with God by simply doing good.

Why pick you pick.

It doesn't matter.

Right.

No one religion should claim they've got it.

But without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness.

I can't buy my forgiveness.

I can't be good enough.

For a perfect God.

I have made the decision to be my own God.

Cosmic rebellion.

Against the God who runs a hundred billion galaxies, me who has to depend on him for my he decides if I take my next breath.

I shake my puny little fist and say, listen, you can run everything else, but I will run me.

There is death to pay.

Several years ago, there was a major forest fire, wildfire out in Washington State.

They call it now the 30 Mile Fire.

And it was one of those fires that took a terrible turn, and the wind turned, and the flames turned on the firefighters.

They deploy these survival tents at that point that can take intense heat.

And most of them deployed those tents. in that that heavily wooded area.

There were four rookie firefighters who later it was learned probably were not given good guidance when they went in.

And they said, this road will get us out of here.

And they decided that that was their best hope.

And believing with all their heart that they would be able to outrun that fire.

They started down that road as fast as they could.

It was a dead end road.

And to this day, the National Forest Service remembers the memorializing of four young firefighters, barely out of their teens, who died that day Sincerely believing they were on a road that would save them.

But wrong And I think of Proverbs 14, 12.

There is a way that seems right to a man, and in the end it leads to death.

I would suggest to you that probably most of our churches have folks in them.

Who are good folks.

But they're not good enough.

Nobody is for a holy God.

There is not one righteous, the Bible says.

No, not one.

Not me?

No, not me.

Nobody For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And so we live under this self-deception, and the world thinks they're going to make it.

And our native friends, as Joe said tonight, uh The ceremonies, the dances, well for us, it can be going through all the Christian stuff at church.

But without the shedding of blood Can't we get the message?

It's so clear that somebody's gotta die No amount of good can pay a death penalty.

You can be as good a guy on death row as you possibly can be, and they won't say, well, that's good enough.

You were sentenced to death, but you were a good guy while you were here.

You can't be good enough to pay a death penalty.

No religion can die for you, whatever religion you are.

So Romans chapter 3, verse 20.

It's not, don't take my word for it.

No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.

Could it be any clearer than that?

No one, these are God's words.

He makes the terms.

No one will be declared righteous in the sight by observing the law.

Rather, through the law, we find out we got a problem.

We become conscious of sin.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood.

Ah, without the shedding of blood.

He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

And he accepted those temporary sacrifices as sort of a hint of what was to come.

So let's go back to Look at Exodus chapter 12.

Let's go back to that night of the Passover when God established the terms of escaping the death penalty.

We don't even have to look at it again.

We've already looked at the verses.

It's very simple.

The only protection against death the night of the Passover was blood on the doorposts.

Do you know what I think that blood represented?

As the angel of death passed over.

That was an announcement from the folks in that house.

We get it.

We understand how serious sin is.

We understand it takes death to pay for it.

And we're putting all our trust in that.

Because you've said it is by the blood sacrifice of a substitute And the angel of this said, they get it.

They understand this.

They put their trust in the right place.

Not in their own righteousness.

They got the blood on the doorpost.

Now I want to take you to the epicenter of eternity back in those days.

Leviticus chapter 16, verses 15 and 16 He then shall slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people, take its blood behind the curtain, he shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover.

And in front of it.

This atonement cover, and we can leave it there.

That's where he will make atonement for the most holy place.

At that point, the epicenter. of a relationship with God was the atonement place where God said , that blood shed to pay for sin is the point at which you and I will meet And you may come through that curtain.

So the death penalty can only be paid.

My death penalty for my sin can only be paid.

By dying.

There is, do understand this, there is no other way to pay a death penalty.

This is why all the good people you know need to know what happened on the cross.

Because all the good they're doing can't pay a death penalty for a rebellion against God.

It takes the blood.

So no matter what religion you are, no religion can die for your soul.

No religion can pay for your sins.

Now, let's talk about the the the second eternity changer, and that's the sacrifice of the lamb.

Numbers Numbers 20 uh Numbers 29 Say this to them.

This is the offering made by fire you're to present to the Lord.

Now there's going to be something here that's very significant that a lot of church folks have missed.

Two lambs, a year old without defect, as a regular burnt offering each day.

We won't look at the other verses, guys.

Let's just take this one.

Several places, and you see the other references here, it was very clear there could be no defect in the substitute.

It had to be a lamb without blemish and without spot.

So the only person who could pay for our sin, it had to be a human to pay for our sin, but it had to be somebody who had no sin of his own to pay for.

Well, that would have to be God becoming a man.

There is no other way you could have a sinless man.

A lamb dies, look at your notes, so a sinner can live.

But the sacrifice has to be without defect.

Now here's what I want to call your attention to.

Was it enough to just offer a sacrifice?

Oh no.

No?

Let's go to Leviticus 16.

When Aaron has finished making atonement for the most holy place, the tent of meeting in the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat.

Now realize Aaron is representing every person in the nation.

He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites, all their sins, and put them on the goat's head.

He shall send the goat away. into the desert, into the care of a man appointed for the task.

The goat will carry on itself.

This is a symbolism.

All their sins to a solitary place, and the man shall release it in the desert.

I want you to notice this.

In order for the sacrifice to apply to my sins, I have to personally appropriate that substitutionary death for me.

That's why you have to, and symbolizing everybody, they can't have the two million people come up and do that, but you in their place must place your hands, you have to grab and take this.

You could be around every you could have a religion about Jesus, you could have a life about Jesus, you could have beliefs about Jesus and miss Jesus.

Because you never, in essence, put your hands on the sacrifice and said, this is for me.

I tell young people there's five things you can do with Jesus.

Did you know that?

There's five things you can do with Jesus.

Here's what they are.

Number one, you can reject them.

I want nothing to do with them.

You know some people who have made that choice.

Second thing you can do is you can ignore him.

You say, well, you know what?

It really, I mean, I'm not against him.

I just I don't care.

You can ignore Jesus.

Third thing you do with Jesus is you can postpone him You know what?

I really think I should really get this taken care of, but there's some things I want to do first.

Got a little living I want to do.

I'll get to you, Jesus.

Just not now.

Fourth thing you can do with Jesus is agree with him.

Our churches are filled with people who agree with Jesus Like what he did?

Believe he died on the cross?

Believe he died on the cross for our sins.

Believe he rose again.

The first four, from rejecting to agreeing with, all go to hell.

Because they miss the transaction that makes the substitutionary death their own.

The fifth thing you do with Jesus is put your total trust in him, which means I abandon all trust and everything else.

It is not about church, it is not about it is not about my goodness.

It is not about my fine reputation.

It is not about giving a lot of money.

It is all about what Jesus did.

It is nothing about me.

I have nothing to contribute to me going to heaven.

I have nothing.

Everything is pinned on Jesus.

When I was 10 years old, I almost drowned.

Because I went out in Lake Michigan with my friends.

I did not know how to swim, and I was too proud to tell them.

I can remember to this day the terror of that moment.

When I stepped off into deeper water than I thought I was going to be in, and I started drinking the lake.

I can picture it this, this is one of those moments that many years later still lives with me.

My friends somehow thought I was a clown.

Can you imagine that?

And that I was kidding.

I was dying And I knew it.

Went under the second time.

Taking on water.

Didn't know what to do.

Flailing around.

Somebody on the shore saw me and thank God he came came out and he took it seriously.

When he when I he reached for me, I knew what to do.

There was no way I could save myself.

I grabbed him like he was my only hope.

Remember when Hurricane Katrina, those people are on the rooftops?

In those places not even an Olympic swimmer could swim out of, because there was such a horrible flood, and they were on top of the roofs with no food, no hope, you know, signs.

And the rescue swimmers came down that cable down to those roofs.

And did you see those people?

They're like every fiber of their bodies hanging on to that rescuer that came from above.

Their only hope is a rescuer from above.

For every human being, every one of us rebels against God.

Our only hope is a rescuer from above.

For there is no hope.

We cannot swim out of this.

And he comes and our, if there's never been a moment that you or someone you love has grabbed Jesus like that, they can agree with everything about him.

Go to everything he's got to go to.

Try to live by his standards.

But they're pinning their hopes on the wrong thing.

It's got to be the one who shed the blood.

It's a death penalty.

I ask you, are you in this picture?

Somebody just might be.

It's a real shock to the system for a pastor, a preacher, a missionary, people I've known, after lives of service to Jesus, to say, you know what?

I don't think I've ever really done that.

My friend still was at his son's uh baseball game.

And Danny got a home run.

In fact, w mom couldn't come.

So so Stu is on the cell phone giving color commentary to his wife.

She's like, How's he doing?

It's a very important game.

He said, wait, he just did a home run.

There he goes.

He's coming around.

He's coming around second.

He's coming around third.

His ride's going.

And then he says, he's out.

She's like, what are you are you messing with me?

You said he hit a home run.

She said, no, the umpire threw him out.

He forgot to touch first base.

He hit a home run, but he never touched first base.

It doesn't count.

And there are people who may have been hitting spiritual home runs, but they missed first base.

They're out.

And first base.

It's that moment of totally saying, Jesus, I have no hope but you, the one who shed the blood Now let's go to the announcement of Jesus' arrival.

By the way, can I ask you a question?

Do you remember how you felt?

Can you go back in the time machine to the first time you really got this?

And it really hit you that that bloody thing going on on that cross was for you Maybe we can't all remember the first time we that hit us.

How many of you can?

You can remember.

You can actually remember the dawning.

Can I ask you how you felt?

How did you feel?

Relieved.

What?

Relieved.

Relieved?

How'd you feel when that dawned on you?

That that was that was for your sin.

That was paying for yours.

How did it hit you?

Huh?

Amazed?

Yeah, what else?

I wasn't alone.

I wasn't alone.

Anybody else?

How did it feel when you first got that?

Well, you know when it was announced?

John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Jesus.

How is Jesus introduced to the world?

Here's how.

John 1.

29.

Notice.

John saw Jesus coming toward him.

He said, look!

After fifteen hundred years of thousands of lambs God's lamb is here.

God's got a lamb.

He is the Prince of Glory.

He is the Son of God.

And he has come here as the lamb, and that word means take away, carry away, take it away and remove it forever.

Who takes away the sin of the world takes it away.

That's my hope.

A lamb died, so I could live Except this one was God's Lamb.

You know, there'd been a little picture of this with the father of the Jewish nation, Abraham, years before.

You remember that God asked Abraham to See, if his son, who is his most treasured thing in his life, if he if he would take him up the mountain to be willing to sacrifice his son, the guy intended for him to do that, and Abraham seemed to know that because he told the servants when they went up there, we'll be back Even though he was obeying what God had said.

And he and Isaac go up there.

He hasn't told Isaac yet, and they get up to the top of the mountain.

Young teenage boy, probably about 13 years old, and they get to the top of the mountain and and Isaac asks this poignant question, um, Daddy, where where's the lamb?

How are we doing this?

Abraham says, oh God himself will provide a lamb.

And you know that at the very last minute As Moses had the knife in the air, or is it Moses?

Stuck on Moses.

Abraham had the knife in the air, the lamb, the ram comes out of the thicket and becomes a sacrifice, and God says to him, to Abraham.

Abraham, you have not withheld your son, your only son.

And Abraham and his beloved son came down that mountain.

About 2,000 years later, on the same Mount Moriah, God's son.

God would bring his son up a hill.

On that mountain.

His only son that he did not withhold.

If there was any other way.

If anything we could do could possibly get us to heaven, God would never allow his lamb to be butchered.

There was no other way.

So when Jesus says, I am the way, he is not saying our religion is better than your religion.

Uh-uh.

All the religions failed to reach God.

No, he's saying somebody had to die.

This is the only way to pay for it.

Abraham's son came back down the mountain God 's son did not.

For the only blood that could atone for the sin of the world was shed by God's Lamb.

There's uh a song you m few of you may have heard it.

Um I'd like to sing it for you.

No, I'm not.

Blessed are the merciful.

Um But it tried to portray this, and I've always thought these were pretty pretty strong lyrics, and it gives us a little picture of it.

It says, they bound the hands of Jesus in the garden where he prayed.

They led him through the streets in shame.

Realize who this is.

Worshiped by a hundred million angels. 10,000 times 10,000, the Bible says. 100 million angels worship him.

They led him through the streets in shame.

They spat upon the Savior, so pure and free from sin.

They said, crucify him, he's to blame.

He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set him free.

He could have called 10,000 angels.

But he died alone for you and me.

To the howling mob he yielded.

He did not for mercy cry.

The cross of shame he took alone.

And when he cried, It is finished, He gave Himself to die.

Salvation's wondrous plan was done.

He could have called ten thousand angels, but he died alone.

For you and me.

Do you know when the the Bible series was on here a few months ago?

Huge, huge, uh amazing surprise hit.

They said the Twitter ver Twitter sphere and and and Facebook and all of the social networks just lit up at the crucifixion scene As people from all over wrote in things like, I never knew, I had no idea.

Friends and neighbors of ours, perhaps.

There was a deep, people were deeply moved by watching this.

They were taken aback by what Jesus went through.

Mel Gibson tried to portray it.

He did the very best he could to portray the awful lacerating and beating and and and the emaciation that took place on that cross But for all of the horror and how it had to be R-rated just simply because of the violence that was done to the God's Lamb.

Mel Gibson could not capture what was really going on.

Because all that blood and all of that couldn't tell you what was going on in the soul of the Son of God who had never touched sin in his life and at that moment, as Billy Graham told us a few minutes ago, took on all the hell and all the dirt and all the crime and all the sin of all the world and carried it in his soul and God said, I can't even look at my son anymore.

As Jesus says, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Because that's how bad my sin is.

When Jesus had my sin, his own heavenly father could not look at him.

And had to turn his back and walk away.

The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, had never been broken.

For all eternity.

One modern contemporary writer, Robin Marx, said Heaven's heav, it said, were heaven's praises silenced in that hour of darkness?

The Holy Spirit brooding round an empty throne.

There was a throne empty as that songwriter pictures it.

For the Son of God was gone.

He was on the cross.

The Holy Spirit brooding round an empty throne.

And so the agony of soul of going to my hell represented by the shedding of blood.

That's what it took to pay for it.

How dare I continue to lie?

When he died for those lies, continue to make deceit and anger and selfishness and me first and Hurtful words.

How dare I?

He died, so I don't have to do that anymore.

To break its power.

How dare I defy and defile his sacrifice?

That's what I'm doing.

And so, um On a mountain of thousands of sacrificed goats and sheep Stands a cross.

Called Calvary.

And there won't be any more sheep or lambs or goats.

No need.

As the Bible says, he has made one sacrifice for everybody once for all.

Doesn't our world need to know?

What happened on that cross was for them and is their only hope?

There can be no other hope.

The shed blood of the Son of God.

Now about that veil.

I want you to picture what very well may have been going on at 3 o'clock on Good Friday.

If you'd been over at the temple on the Temple Mount, what would have been going on at 3 o'clock on the day of Passover is that the high priest would have been preparing himself.

And he would be getting ready to make the sacrifice for sin.

No doubt All the crowds that were there for Passover would be looking in to the tabernacle area and they saw they saw that massive curtain.

The wall between them and God And it's quite likely that at 3 o'clock on Good Friday afternoon, the high priest picture him in his ornate high priestly robes.

Everything about it is significant and symbolic. has now the sacrificial lamb and has the knife to slit its throat to carry the blood into the Holy of Holies.

And he comes to the brazen altar outside the curtain.

Perhaps the knife is in the air.

He probably can't hear Jesus going, it is finished to telestai, paid in full.

That's what that means.

Paid in full.

Never again a payment for sin.

I've made it for everybody forever.

And at that moment, perhaps, as he is ready with that knife to slip the throat of the sacrificial lamb.

Suddenly that curtain that for all these all these centuries has been between God and man starts to rip They said they used to, they even had horses try to pull it apart.

Nobody been able to pull it apart, but it's not being cut from man to God.

It's being split from God to man.

And God said, I accept the payment my son has made.

The wall is gone.

Y'all come in now That's it as I said i in a Levitic Leviticus, it is the blood.

Now I used to collect baseball cards when I was a kid, but not like my son, who has never forgiven his grandmother, which isn't a very nice thing, because his grandmother threw out my baseball cards when we moved.

I had Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays.

Yeah, we could be very rich right now.

Oh he could be.

He's like, grandma, what did you do?

But um he started collecting his own I didn't know when I brought him that first pack of baseball cards he was gonna get hooked.

But I didn't know this, he was gonna become like Wall Street investor Buy low, sell high, except with baseball cards, not stocks.

He studied guys when they were in college, got very smart about it, really knew his baseball card stuff, helped pay his way through college that way.

But um when he was a kid he really wanted to go to this baseball show.

Now I said Doug, you know, he knew this, he knew that I'd lived in Chicago, grew up on the south side of Chicago, and so I at that time I was a Chicago White Sox fan, of course, south side of Chicago, that's what you did And uh I wanted to get the whole White Sox team.

So I got them all, but one.

Have you ever noticed about baseball cards?

They print lots of the cards of the people you don't care about and a few of the ones that are really good.

That's that's a very good business move I could never get Nellie Fox, my hero.

I bought so many I went out to the the vacant lot and dug pop bottles out of the vacant lot and took them over to the old guy at the store there and I got bought a few more packs of cards with the deposits on those bottles.

I could not get Nelly Fox.

All-star second baseman over and over again, Golden Globe Award winner, Hall of Famer.

Doggun!

I never got my Nelly Fox card.

Fast forward now Doug's collecting baseball cards.

We go to an he's saved for a long time now to go to this really big card show down at Ocean City and we go into that place and we start looking around and we're in there five minutes and I look in the case and there's Nellie.

This guy got him.

Must be the only one ever printed.

I don't know.

There he is.

Doug says, Dad, you gonna buy it?

I said, nah, no, I'm not collecting anymore.

I said, just kind of nice to see what it looks like.

No, listen, let's split up and I'll see you in about a half an hour.

Let's meet up at the front.

Okay.

So he's going around, got his m money kind of jingling in his pocket that he's been saving up.

And but before the half hour is up, he I I feel somebody tugging behind me And and and um it was Doug.

And um he has hand behind his back and he looked at me with those big blue eyes And he said, here daddy.

He had bought the Nelly Fox card.

He had no money left.

He said, Daddy, I love you.

I knew he did.

Because he spent everything he had on me.

God calls you by name and says, I love you.

And I know he does.

Because he spent everything he had on you.

He spared not his own son.

I said there were three eternity changers.

Let's bring this home.

The power in the blood.

How many times have you ever sung that in your life?

There is power.

In the good song they just have you do eight from power, power, power, power, power, wonder working power.

And some of them do 16.

Pop Wonderworking Power.

I'm not going to do that.

I think I just did These are the reasons to be unafraid now.

Here we go.

Number one, the blood of Jesus provides an all-access pass to the presence of the Most High God.

An all-access have you been to any concerts or that?

Because I'm speak sometimes I'm given an all-access pass.

Nobody can get back and see the big rock band.

Nobody cares about the speaker.

You know, they don't think speakers.

Who cares?

But the bands, oh man, if I could just oh I got to meet two and toe.

I got to meet the speaker.

But, you know, I'm back at the stage, and all these people would love to be back there, and I'm back where nobody can go because I have an all-access pass.

I can go anywhere I want because I have the pass.

I remember when we took some Native American team members to hear Third Day in a concert in Canada.

We had been out on the road and we ended up in Canada and they s I said, because I knew the guys in Third Day, the band, I said, can we um would you like to meet them?

'Cause I knew they had come to our Warrior Leadership Summer Conference and um they had uh one of the most memorable days of their life with Native Americans there And I said, would you like to go back and oh, Ron, that would be great.

Okay, good.

And we'll pray with them.

Oh, can you do that?

So I took a couple with me, and I mean you got security everywhere.

This was a b this was the main facility.

Um I think I forget where what which some Canadian city it was, but And we started going back there and they'd stopped me.

They said, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Oh, they see my pastor go, okay, wait a minute.

They can't go.

And I just say, oh, wait, they're with me.

Okay, Coleman, you can go ahead.

And they got past every security guy.

They couldn't have got past, but I didn't the all-accessed pass.

They said come with me They're with you.

You can go.

You know I'm gonna be able to get into heaven.

Well, I have an all-access pastor walking to the throne of God now once a year.

I can walk in there right now.

I can walk out there at any moment with anything.

And it says, the reason I know that is because God guarantees it in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19, here is your all-access pass.

Brothers, since we have confidence to enter, confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, I can confidently walk in there and find the grace I need for this day.

Hebrews 4. 16 says Because Jesus, when I walk in, says, He's with me.

He's with me.

Secondly, the blood of Jesus purifies us from all our sin.

That's going to be very important for somebody in just a second.

1 John 1. 7 says exactly that.

Look, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.

I want to ask you a question.

Are you still condemning yourself?

You're still punishing yourself?

Are you still refusing to accept the forgiveness that was bought with the blood of Jesus?

If you've repented of it.

We don't dishonor him by continually asking if you've been forgiven.

The blood of Jesus who sinned purifies us from all sin The picture from Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress is this So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up to the cross, the burden loosed from off his shoulders and fell from his back. and began to tumble and so continued to it rolled till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre where it fell into the sepulchre and I saw it no more.

Woo what a great picture Are you still picking up a backpack that Jesus already took?

Would you please accept the forgiveness you've been given?

The blood of Jesus crushes Satan.

The blood of Jesus crushes Satan.

Revelation chapter 12, verse 11.

Notice this.

They overcame him.

That's the devil.

I want you to read this part with me.

Read it out loud.

They, here we go.

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Let's stop right there.

Two things that the devil cannot stand, it sends the devil away.

And number one is when you bring to him the blood of Jesus that his death warrant is signed with. that will send him to a lake of fire that has broken his hold on humans because he thought he could take us to hell with him because of our unforgiven sin.

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.

You tell him, you remind him of what Jesus did on the cross, and then the word of their testimony is how he has changed your life.

Your hope story and his story of the cross and the devil is out.

He is crushed.

In fact, Colossians says that Jesus made a public spectacle of him when he died on the cross.

By the way, you realize that's why he tries to silence you when you say the name Jesus.

Have you noticed that?

You can talk about your church, you can talk about religion, you can talk about God, you know when you choke?

God's really helped me a lot.

I'm really glad God's going to take me to heaven.

Jesus, say the name.

Everybody in your circle of influence deserves one opportunity to have somebody who's been to that cross take them there.

And say that was for you, my friend.

The blood of Jesus crushes Satan.

The blood of Jesus paid the price to have a global family of the forgiven.

This is the power of the blood.

Look at this.

You saw this up in our office today.

Revelation 5.

They sang a new song, you are worthy to take the scroll to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe, every language, every people, every nation.

Now here's my question to you.

How dare we just care about our little world, our little church, our little orbit, our little Christian goldfish bowl?

When his plan was to purchase lives from every tribe, every one of us in this room must be a part of what he died for.

Find a way.

Find a way to be an active part, to be all into what Jesus died for.

And that is to build a global family of believers.

He so loved the world to you or just your world.

I thank so many of you, because you have gone so far beyond your world and cared about a lost world.

I know by your partnership with us.

He died to buy a global family of the forgiven.

And last of all, the blood of Jesus, now almost last, frees us from our sins.

Revelation 1. 5 said this.

Look at the last part.

He loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

By the way, um.

Are you still a slave to something he died to free you from?

Do you understand there is power in that blood that you don't have to be that way anymore?

My chains fell off.

My heart went free.

I rose went forth.

And follow thee.

One last one.

And you may have never thought of this.

The blood of Jesus breaks the power. of family sins.

Do you know perhaps the hardest sins to finally deal with are the ones you grew up with.

Everybody in this room was raised by sinners.

My kids were raised by sinners.

Every kid is.

And just like when one person in the family catches the flu, pretty much everybody's going to get it.

Just like people go, you know, you look like your mother.

That might have been the worst thing anybody could have said to you.

You're like, I don't want to hear that.

You look like you remind me of your dad.

The hair, the nose, the whatever it is.

We have the family resemblance.

Exodus says the sins of the fathers are visited on the third and fourth generation.

And it's true, by a process of spiritual germs being transmitted, we end up doing the things we hated when our parents did them.

Sounding like them, acting like them.

One lady said, mirror, mirror on the wall.

I am my mother after all.

How can you be free from those patterns that that poisoned you as a kid?

And now you look and you say, doggun it.

I'm doing it.

And I'm infecting another generation.

Who are going to infect their kids?

Who will infect another generation?

Because it's a family sin.

It's part of what it's like being in our family.

It's just you manipulate, because I was manipulated.

You lie, you deceive to get your way.

You do whatever you have to do to get your way.

You You freeze people out if you're mad or you or you scream or you withdraw or or you you you punish or whatever you learned from sinful parents.

Let's go to 1 Peter 1. 18 and verse 19.

This is so cool.

It is not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed.

Start there.

You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers.

And I don't know if we have verse 19 or not.

That's the most important part.

Here's what it says.

You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers by the precious blood of Christ.

You know what that means?

You can stop it in your generation.

It does not have to infect anybody else.

You can save your kids, your grandkids In generations to come from the family sins.

For the precious blood of Christ Since because of the power of that blood, you say it stops here and it stops now.

I repent of it and I bring the blood of Jesus to the atonement cover for the family sins.

I bring it to the cross.

I'm done, Jesus.

This is not a part of us anymore.

And whole generations can be redirected and redeemed By the blood of Christ's power to free you from a family sin.

Hallelujah.

So I just, tonight I've done my best, and I feel so unworthy, and I feel so inadequate.

To try to explain that it is the blood and what that blood really means.

But I say it is time to unleash the power of the blood on the darkness in your closets, on the darkness in your family And to be sure that everybody you know gets one chance to know that God's Lamb died for them.

I'll close with the hymn the hymn writers words that exceed my eloquence a lot.

When I survey the wondrous cross the on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain, I count but loss, I poor contempt.

On all my pride.

See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down.

Did ere such love and sorrow meet?

Or thorns?

Compose so rich a crown?

Jesus were the whole realm of nature, mind.

That were a present far too small.

Love so amazing.

So divine demands my soul, my life, my all It is the blood.

It's a pray And so by your invitation, and qualified only by the blood that was shed by you, Lamb of God.

We come into the throne room that we may now walk into with boldness.

What in the world?

And we Jesus, you withheld nothing.

You withheld nothing.

As you cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Lord, would you show us what we're withholding from you?

For surely such a price should get what you paid for, which is not the spare parts or the easy to give things in my life, but the deep things.

The last things to give, I must give to you.

May we be transformed by the price you paid And Lord, I know when I pray in your name, I know what your name means.

It means you are the God who rescues.

It is God who saves.

And so I pray in the name of Jesus, the God who came to save us.

Amen.