In this second talk Andrew Heard resolves the problem he set up in the first talk and reminds us of the great glory of the cross of Jesus.
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TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Good day.I’m Pete Hughes.You’ve clicked on the Reach Australia podcast.If you haven’t heard the first talk of this series, I really want to encourage you to go back and listen to this.But here we see Andrew Heard continue in his series of how to solve the problem that Humanity Has through the cross.
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And this is the second talk from our series in the National Conference from 2025.
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Enjoy.Now if you would open with me, I’m reading from the NIV Galatians 1 to 14, and we’re gonna hear from God’s Word.So, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before your very eyes?
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Jesus Christ was clearly betrayed as crucified.I would like to learn just one thing from you.Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard?Are you so foolish after beginning by means of the Spirit?
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Are you now trying to finish by the means of the flesh?Have you experienced so much in vain, if it really was in vain?So again I ask, does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?
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So also Abraham believed God, and it was credit to him as righteousness.Understand then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham.
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All nations will be blessed through you.So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham.The men of faith for all who rely on the works of the Law, are under a curse, and as it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law.
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Clearly, no one who relies on the Law is justified before God because the righteous will live by faith.The Law is not based on faith.On the contrary, it says the person who does these things will live by them.
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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is ridden.Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.He redeemed us in order that the blessings given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so but that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
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It’s me, yes, it’s good.There was just no clap and I thought that’s what I’m after.Bit of affirmation, fake though it was, but there we are.
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Let me pray.Well, Heavenly Father, we, we do pray please that you would use this time graciously to work in our hearts to transform and change us.Help us see what we need to see.Do that ministry that only you can do by your spirit in our lives.
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That we would come out of this time, out of this time in total, this whole few days together, better able, greatly encouraged to serve you all our days.We prayed in Jesus name, Amen.Well, let me jump straight into where we were yesterday.
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Do you remember we talked yesterday?What is the greatest problem facing humanity?What is the greatest problem facing humanity?It’s not social media.It’s not it’s not the left of politics.It’s not the right of politics.It’s not the environment.It’s not power, climate change, it’s not power dynamics.It’s it’s not Trump, sorry to say, it’s not our greatest problem.
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What is our greatest problem?Do you remember from yesterday?Our greatest problem is that God is against us.There it is.Specifically, our sin has left us under the wrath of God, and we need to fully own the fact that this is the case and that these talks are not light and fluffy.
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And as an aside, it matters that you and I, the people in this room, that matters that we particularly see these things because if we don’t see them, no one else will.We are given to see invisible realities by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God.
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And if we don’t stand and proclaim those truths, no one else will.So we’re the ones particularly charged with this responsibility.But of course, that leaves us with the question, what to do?If that is the great problem against us, how do we fix it?What do we do with it?What does humanity do?
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That must be our question.And in human history, I want to suggest it’s possible to say there are only two options, what we must do.The first option is the one that seems most obvious to us, the most natural answer, the one that’s most popular.
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You see it everywhere.I’ll show you some of this in a moment.The second answer is the only other way.And it’s the way that’s unique to one religion and one religion only.It’s unpopular, it’s least natural.And to the unregenerate mind, it’s offensive.
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To the regenerate mind, it’s beautiful.We’ll come to that in a moment.The two ways.Now these two ways are discussed in Galatians chapter 3.The passage was just said.So make sure your, your Bible’s open to there.Here’s my plan to do what I want us to do is just go through that little section.
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I want us to talk firstly about the two different ways.The, the popular way.First, that’ll go fairly quickly, relatively quickly.It’ll only take an hour.And then the second way will take much longer.So get hydrated, settle in.But what I want to do too is just let you know that during the second way, which will be the longest section, I want to talk about a complication near the end.
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So just be alert that we’re coming to a big kind of section through that second way.Let me take you through the first way.It’s there in chapter 3, verse 10, Chapter 3, verse 10.For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.
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Now, the idea that he’s talking about there, the way that he’s talking about there are, is the way of the works of the law.Now that begs the question, what is the way of the works of the law?It’s a technical phrase that’s had a great deal of debate around it actually in recent decades.But it’s a fairly straightforward phrase to work out what Paul means by when you look at the context because he talks about that way in a number of different ways.
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So he gives us the title works of the law, but then he uses different kinds of language to express what he means by it.So if you look there in verse 10, all the rely on works of the law under a curse at is as it is written cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the law.So what he does is he works works the law is not the way those who continue to do everything in it.
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So another way of saying works of the law is to do things written in the book of the law.It’s it’s just a fairly straightforward piece of comprehension.You’ll find then again in verse 11, he says the same thing again, he talks about there those who rely on the law.Relying on the law is another way of saying works of the law doing the law.
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And in verse 12, he says it’s the same thing as doing the law.Who the, the person who does these things will live well and does these things.So you’ve got this series of phrases that help you understand what works of the law is, in summary, what is works of the law?Works of the law is doing what the law requires, doing the commandments of the law, obeying the law’s commandments.
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These are all the same way of saying the same thing.Do you see?It’s a fairly straightforward thing, Paul’s conclusion.He’s about as blunt as you can get.All who rely on that way are under a curse.All who rely on works of the law, all who rely on doing the law, all who rely on relying on the law under a curse.
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Why?It’s not because the law is bad.It’s not that obeying it is bad.It’s because of two reasons.I’m going to just talk about the first one today and then second one tomorrow.The first reason it’s bad is that he tells us verse 10.
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No one can do it.No one can do all of it.Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law.That’s why you cannot go that way.Now this observation by Paul, this assertion by Paul is shattering.It’s it’s absolutely shattering, not just for the Jews, but for the whole world.
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Because if the Jews can’t get to God by the way of doing the law, given all of their privileges and opportunities, in fact, they had God come close to them, they had the prophets, they had all the, they had all of that in place.And if they cannot do it with all the advantage, no one in the world can do it.
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So their failure is everyone’s failure.It’s shattering.And let me give you a sense of how shattering this is.We recently went through the experience of seeing our community, our world, went through the experience of seeing Pope Francis die.So that whole moment some many weeks ago now and, and it was a great outpouring of grief during that time, fairly immediately after, there was a number of people began asking the question, will the Pope be in heaven?
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Did you notice this?So you would have got a morning tea times.You would have got a very different context.There were articles and and blogs and podcasts, most famous of which in the world is the one that comes out of Annandale.You don’t know about it.All right, there you are.Pastor’s heart.
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We want to encourage him in his ministry.But these kinds, which was you weren’t very encouraging just then, but there we are.Yeah, that’s right.Here we go.So a lot of these things talked about, raised the question and talked about the question, will the Pope go to heaven?Now, I all of that content was helpful to engage with, I thought.
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But what was more interesting were the responses to it.And they fell into 3 categories as far as I could tell.They fell into the category of it’s too soon to be asking that question, people are in grief, and so on.The other category was judging the heart.
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How can we judge the heart?But the third category is the most interesting of all.It was the reaction of outrage that anyone would dare even ask the question, like heated comments that said things like this is repulsive and offensive, and they’re outraged that you would even ask the question.
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Why outraged?Because to even ask the question, to dare ask the question implies there’s a doubt.And how dare you imply that doubt about the Pope?Now that was interesting in itself.If you know, Roman Catholic theology, which says that you can’t have assurance of salvation so that you can be assured of it, is itself odd.
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And anyway, but there you are.Putting that aside, what was more interesting was and deeply disturbing were the reasons given for why we can be sure he was there.Because what were the reasons you think we can be sure he’s in heaven?Because he was a good man.
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He was gracious, sacrificial, humble.He lived in poverty.He championed the cause of which is to say he deserved to be in.Which was to say he is saved by works of the law.
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Now that was significant.But most disturbing was those heated expressions of outrage were expressed by churchgoers in Protestant churches and by Protestant church leaders.This is the most natural way of thinking.
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It’s the most intuitive, it’s the most attractive, but it is the most terribly mistaken.All who rely on doing the works of the law, all who rely on the law, all who rely on their good deeds are under a curse.
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Paul says it here.He says it in chapter 2.He says it in Romans.He says it a couple of times.There is no unrighteous, not even one.By the Law, no one will be declared righteous in His sight.Could he be clearer now?
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Why is this so mistaken?Because it underestimates the depth of our sin.Even our righteous deeds are filthy rags.And it underestimates the majestic holiness of God and the difference between the Sinner and God.This is all back to yesterday and you need to drink deeply of the profound insights of the Bible around who we really are, the truth that we cannot see without the help of the Scriptures to see.
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No Pope will stand before God on the basis of his personal holiness.No gentle, kind, sacrificial mum will stand before God because of her personal holiness.No decent, hard working dad will stand before God on the basis of His personal holiness.
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And the extent to which our church leaders are saying the opposite is the extent to which false teaching of the most serious kind is running rampant amongst us and leading great numbers of people lost to the horrors of hell.
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All will not be well.They are prophets who cry peace, peace when there is no peace.No wonder the apostle Paul pronounced at Curson what is required.
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What is required?Well, what’s required is another way entirely, The way the Apostle Paul in verse 11 and 12 calls the way of faith.It’s the way of faith.But what is that way?Why is it so unpopular?Why is it offensive even?And this is the one I want to spend now the rest of our time on with the complication to come.
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So just hang in there for that.The way of faith, faith itself is not hard to get our heads into.It’s the way of non working.Verse 11 and 12, he compares and contrasts the law, the way of the law and the way of faith.The way of faith is the way of not working.
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So that’s in essence what it is.It’s the one who does not work.It’s the way of trusting and relying on.But why is it so offensive?That doesn’t seem offensive.What’s so offensive about trusting?What?What is the issue here?
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Why is it so unpopular?Why do people keep choosing the other way?Because here’s a key point.Because the way of faith means more than just the way of faith.The way of faith means more than just the way of faith.
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Just hold that that is, there’s something more needed than just faith which helps you see then what faith is and why it must be faith, and why faith is so hard to come by.
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But we’re saved by faith alone.But not just faith.Verse 13 is the key.Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.For what is written cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.
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The key to understanding those extraordinary words, There’s some of the most astonishing words written in the Bible when you understand them, and the key to understanding them is going back, back into the Old Testament, into the Old Testament sacrificial system.I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but through these verses here, it’s quite extraordinary.
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Every assertion Paul makes in each verse, he backs it up with an Old Testament verse, assertion, verse, assertion verse, assertion verse, assertion verse.Paul is very much deeply embedded in the Old Testament.And So what we’re going to do now is go back and spend some time in the Old Testament to come back forward again into Galatians.
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You’re with me there.That’s what’s happening.I want you to flip back to the book of Leviticus, particularly chapter 16, Flip back to liberty.And as you’re going back there, let me just remind you that the question that hungover the whole Old Testament was the great question for humanity, which is how is it possible for a holy God to dwell amongst sinners?
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That is the big question that hangs looking for resolution.There are many moments where that questions all consuming.So numbers chapter 16, fire breaks out from the Lord in his anger to consume the people.Numbers 25, the Lord’s anger burns against his people.
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How can they survive in his presence?But most explicit is Exodus chapter 32, the golden calf.So you remember this incident where how can God go up with this people given their stiff necked rebellious people?And he says to Moabus, leave me alone that my anger may burn against them.
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How can sinners hang out with a holy God?There’s the big question that’s running through the Bible.How is it possible?Well, the answer is given.It’s possible because of atonement.Atonement.Now atonement, atonement’s a made-up word.
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At one minute it’s just a made-up word, but it’s translating the word kippa, Hebrew word kippa.And kippa is a word that conveys the idea of dealing with the obstacle that stands in the way.That’s something of what it means.It’s got a range of meanings at time.It’s a very big idea in the Bible, and it’s used scores of times to the Old Testament.
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The vast majority of the times it’s used in the Old Testament are used in Leviticus, and the vast majority of its uses in Leviticus is chapter 16 of Leviticus.That’s the hotbed of the language of atonement all in that one chapter, because this is the chapter, chapter 16, if you’ve got your Bible there, you’ll see it with the heading, This is the chapter that’s the Day of Atonement.
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Yom Kippur is the way we talk about it.It’s the Day of Atonement.Let me go there and take you through it.Chapter 16 spells out the complex rituals and activity that were necessary for the Day of Atonement so that if you come right to the end of the chapter, verse 34, this is a lasting ordinance for you.
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Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.Once a year.It’s complex because you’ve been seeing through the book of litigants various sacrifices, sin offerings, burnt offerings that were for atonement that were being done day by day by day.
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But when you come to this one annual event, it’s almost as if the sins that have never been able to be dealt with and now dealt with on this one day is the kind of nature of it.And so it’s a complex day.There would be a whole lot of pre work done for many days before it.The high priest would be kept.
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We’ve got literature around this in the ancient world, in the ancient Jewish context, it tells you a lot more detail.They would be kept and so on and so forth leading up towards it.You get the description there, what the high priest must do in the first few verses.He must purify himself, purify himself with sin in his to wash throughout the day where we we can see from elsewhere.
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He would wash five times during the day to keep putting on new robes, new clothes, to be prepared to be the one.And verse verse 6 there you’ll see that he himself must offer a bull.For his own sin offering and to make atonement for himself and his household so that he’s fit and in a place to be able to make atonement for the nation of Israel.
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And then verse 5 and going back a touch, you’ll find that he takes 2 male goats for a sin offering.Singular interesting 2 male goats for a sin offering.This will make sense in a second.And verse 7, he presents them before the Lord and casts lots for them.This activity was so significant, the lots that were cast became gold.
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So there’s a great deal of expense and concern and care around all of this.And one of the lots that fell would be the lot of the goat for the Lord, verse 9, to be the sin offering.And the other lot that fell on the other goat would be for the scapegoat, another word that’s been made-up to make sense of what’s been said in the Hebrew there.
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And after the cleansing of the temple with the bull and the blood that’s spread everywhere over the temple, the slaughtering and killing of this animal for the atonement, the, the, the, the, the purification, cleansing and and forgiveness of the high priest, blood is spread everywhere.
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These lots are cast.The sin offering goat verse 15 is slaughtered and in context with all the other activities of offering in the in the book of Liberty, because hands would have been laid on it, slaughtered, blood spilled and collected and spread everywhere.
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Verse 7, verse 9, I’m sorry, the other goat is offered as a scapegoat and what what happens with the scapegoat?Verse 15 looks, let’s look carefully there.Read this with me.He actually I saw the goat for a sin offering, and take the blood and do with it as he did with the bull’s blood.
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Sprinkle it everywhere, and then you’ll come to verse 20.Verse 20, When Aaron has finished making atonement for the most holy place in the tent of meeting in the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat.He has to lay both hands on the head of the live goat.Confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of Israel, all their sins, put them on the head of the goat, and then send the goat away into the wilderness and the care of someone appointed to the task.
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The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place, and the man shall release it there in the wilderness.And we know from other literature that when they took it into the wilderness and left it there, they pushed it down in escarpment to make sure it never came back.It was killed and broken into pieces and then verse 29 we get the conclusions of this is a lasting audience.
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That ordinance, the 10th day of the 7th month, you must deny yourself, not do any work and so on because on this day, on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you.Then you’ll be clean.Verse 3034 Atonement is to be made once a year.Now this whole day is a complex event.
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There’s all kinds of ideas and pieces that are part of it.There’s no clarity on which particular piece makes atonement singular.The language singular make atonement.It’s not clear which of the bits did the atoning, and I think the best sense of it is that it all did.The whole package is what is making atonement.
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The ball for the high priest, the the goat for the nation, it’s slaughtered and killed, hands laid on it, sin pronounced on the other.And some people suggest, and I think very helpfully, that the the slaughter of the goat is the is the is the is the penalty upon and the scapegoat is the consequences of sin now being carried away.
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So you get these kind of two ideas bound into one.It’s very complex.But here’s the thing.What’s clear is this Atonement is not achieved by the mere inner disposition of the person seeking it.
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Atonement is not achieved by the mere inner disposition of the person seeking it.Sin, and the righteous judgement of God against it cannot be put aside by the mere wave of God’s hand.
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Sin is serious.God’s wrath is deadly.The Day of Atonement was full of blood.Things died.God cannot let sin go unpunished.But what’s also clear and what was necessary in in it all was the idea of substitution.
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Right throughout the Leviticus sacrifices, hands are laid on the animal that’s to be killed and it’s slaughtered and burned up.And this activity of hands laid is very explicit in the scapegoat.When sins are pronounced over it and it’s sent off carrying the sins, the idea of substitution is very clear.
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But by all of this, it is said that atonement is made, sin is cleansed, forgiveness is made, is is achieved.And it was an incredibly serious day.Atonement is necessary, otherwise sinners die under the righteous wrath of God.
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Atonement is not achieved by the mere inner disposition of the person seeking it.Something must be done.In addition, what must be done?Sin must be punished by God.
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God’s wrath must be turned so that atonement can be made.Now there’s a problem though.As powerful as all of this was for the nation of Israel, and they did it every year, every year, history tells us that there was a great celebration at the end of each day, celebration for the fact that the high priest made it into the Holy of Holies and out again and survive.
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And there was a great sense of relief that the sins of Israel have been dealt with again for the for another year.But many raised the unavoidable question, which was, how can the blood of bulls and goats take away sin?And the answer they can’t.
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And so emerges in the Old Testament itself, a New Hope that one day a servant would come who would be worthy to be the substitute.And so Isaiah 53, which has application to other contexts immediately, but a suffering servant, the one upon whom God would lay the iniquity of us all.
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Now centuries pass, and then John the Baptist emerges and he sees in the distance a Jewish Carpenter coming to him, and he says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
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Jesus himself said that he came to give his life as a ransom for many.He also said that if only a seed, if a seed falls to the ground and dies, it enables many seeds.
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And he’s talking about his death.And then he says in the Last Supper, in his blood, a new covenant is established.And if you live with the Old Testament sacrifices, if you stood by the altar every day over the centuries, watching this happen, in your lifetime, watching this happen, and you see the slaughter of the substitute and the blood collected, these words must have been ominous, spine tingling.
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And then Jesus dies at the very time the sacrificial lambs are being slaughtered, and he rises, and he spends weeks with his followers, teaching them, so that we now get Hebrews Chapter 9.
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Come with me to Hebrews Chapter 9.Hebrews Chapter 9, verse 11.But when Christ came, as the high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect Tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not part of this creation.
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He did not enter by the means of the blood of goats and bulls and calves, but he entered the most holy place once ruled by His own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of heifers Sprinkle on those who are ceremony unclean.
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Sanctify them so that they’re outwardly clean.How much more than will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God?
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There is someone who has been instructed.And then the apostle Paul in Galatians 3 verse 13 takes all of that and drives it even deeper because he tells us that Christ did not just have sin placed upon him.
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He says that He redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse himself, that that sin is so identified with the substitute, so much part of the substitute, that he can say he became sin and the curse of God’s judgement against it.
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He became that curse.Are there more astonishing words that you could ever read?And this is said of the eternal Son of God, not just an animal, but God’s precious Son, a lamb without spot or blemish.
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The judgement, the curse of God, the iniquity of us all has been laid upon him so that he becomes a curse and he becomes a curse.He becomes a curse for us.He becomes a curse for us in our place.Paul takes the death of Jesus and he kind of ratchets it right up.
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He, he says it, it, it was filled not only that the fulfillment was not only that he was the sacrifice, but that he was so deeply vested in being our substitute that he becomes a curse.Think of the horror of this, the perfect Son of God, God’s beloved Son, the one that the Father says it is baptism.
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This is my Son whom I love with him.I’m well pleased, who has lived eternally with Father and Son in the Spirit, lovingly unified.Think of the horror of that eternal Son.God himself becomes a curse, becomes sin, the horror of it the night before.
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Of course he, he, he, take this cup from me, the cup filled with the wine of God’s wrath.Take this not my will, but yours.He shrinks from it, He recoils from the thought, but he goes forward with it out of love for his Father, obedience to his Father’s will, and out of love for us, out of love for you who are by nature objects of wrath.
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And here’s the wondering glory of it and the reason why Faith is so offensive.The reason why faith is so offensive.Let me give you a story.This is not a funny story.This is a terrible story.True story.A woman, a husband and wife living together for many years.
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He’s often travelling for work overseas.And eventually she tweaks to the fact that he’s been having an affair.And I’m sorry if this triggers, but he’s been having an affair and she confronts him about it.He is, he is shattered, he’s repentant.
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He apologises, says sorry and means it.Now question for you, should she have him back?Does she have to have him back?Answer no, he’s broken the marriage covenant.
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Doesn’t matter how many times he says sorry, she doesn’t have to have him back.He is forfeited his place in relationship with her.It’s finished.He is now entirely at her mercy.
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Because two things are necessary for reconciliation.Not just his repentance and sorrow.But what else is necessary?Her determination to forgive and her determination to forgive in such a way that bears the price of forgiveness.
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Now, you won’t appreciate this if you’ve not actually been hurt badly.If you’ve just had to forgive someone because they didn’t give your book back or they dinged your surfboard or something like this, you won’t know what we’re talking about here.But if you’ve been hurt deeply, you’ll know this and what happened.True.Sorry, what happened the the husband she did receive him back Christian woman He came home from work early one day, heard weeping in the house and as he came close, he began to hear what the weeping was about and she was on her knees by the bed crying out to God.
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Please help me have the strength to forgive because who was bearing the pain?She was, and that’s the nature of forgiveness.If you truly forgive from the heart and the offence that’s being forgiven is so serious, you will bear the pain.
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This is the nature of it.God does not and cannot just forgive.He cannot just wave aside the sin of the Sinner.It must be paid for.He must do something.
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And what he does, wonder of wonders, is pay for it in our place.The penalty he puts on a substitute, Now there’s more to the atonement than penalty on the substitute.Penal substitution, there’s more to the atonement than that.
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And there are depths and riches about the whole thing that we’ll never comprehend.But penal substitution is at the heart of it and is given by God to us to see the core foundational, fundamental pieces, but not the totality of it.And even all the other models we get will be bigger and deeper, and we’ll see one day.
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But nonetheless, these things are given to us that the very heart of it is this idea of God placing the penalty, the curse of sin on someone in our place, the substitute, and he becomes sin for us, which means something for more, something else for us.
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I’ll come back to this in a moment, but but first, I just want to make sure before we come back to that next piece, I want to just make sure you’ve you’ve, you’ve got no secret hang ups with what I’m saying because people do what what’s happened over the years is that the way I’ve just explained the cross has been responded to by many people in Christendom with great horror.
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People have been shocked at the thought of what I’m saying for various reasons, but chiefly because it sounds like what I’ve just explained.The cross to beat sounds like offensive Pagan beliefs that speak of the need to placate an angry God.
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That sounds primitive, and the thought that the true God might need a sacrifice to deal with his anger seems utterly offensive to the modern notions of God.And so there’s been a very strong reaction against these things.Ji Packer has expressed this perhaps best better than anyone in in a in a number of places.
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But one of the ones you ought to read is what did the cross achieve by Packer?Write that down.Jason up What did the cross achieve by Packer?He’s just getting online.But one of the he talks tells the story of Troy to give some expression of this.Do you remember the choice?So Helen has been ripped off, stolen and taken across the sea.
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And the Greek general makes chase, gets the army in the boats.And as they seek to chase across the ocean, to chase and get the winds turn against them so they can’t sail into winds they can’t pursue.And he reads that as the gods against him.And so he does what the ancients did.
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He found the most precious thing that he could find for himself.He found his daughter back at home and brought her to the field and had her slaughtered to placate the anger of the gods.And so the winds turned and he was able to give chase.
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Now, who is not outraged by that story?It’s ugly, it’s dreadful, But how is it any different from what I’ve just said?Take a moment to talk to the person next to you and see if you can come up with it being.
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Is it different?How might it be different?Take a moment.This is that complication I was talking about.Go.OK, that’ll do.Now I’m tempted to ask you what the differences are, but you’ll you’ll make, I won’t have anything worth saying anymore, right?
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So let me just tell you how I what what I think.All right?No, no, no.Here we go, some things are the same.The Bible is very clear that God is angry and that sacrifice is needed.
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Romans chapter 1 The wrath of God is being revealed by heaven against the sinless and godliness, the weakness of men who suppress the truth.God is there’s wrath, it’s real.Sacrifice is needed, and our inner disposition of faith is not the key.
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But almost everything else is different.God’s anger isn’t out of vanity or impatience or childish ego.He’s perfect, holy, just he must respond to sin because that’s the character of holiness that requires sin to be punished.
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It’s purity and holiness.He’s steady, He’s firm in that he, he, he’s not mercurial.He he’s not, he’s not malicious.And our sin isn’t trivial.We didn’t just slip up.We didn’t get out on the bed on the wrong side that day and God got angry.
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Our sin, we have rebelled.By nature, we are objects of wrath.That’s so baked into us.It’s profound.It’s deeply.That’s all of yesterday.Understanding that is crucial that you don’t live with a modern conception of humankind.
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Basically, good just slips up.You need to dig deep into the Word of God about the nature of sin.Now there’s more that’s different, though, and here’s the big ones.It’s not us who act to bring about the atonement that’s necessary.
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It’s not us who finds something most precious to us to propitiate the angry God who’s sulking.We must act.We must do something.But it’s a very different kind of thing that we must do.We’ll get there in a second.The Scriptures are consistent with the extraordinary truth that the sacrifice that turns aside the righteous anger of God is provided by God Himself.
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It’s his gift. 1 John, chapter 4, verse 10.This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave his Son as a propitiation, as a sacrifice to turn aside his wrath for us.
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He gives what’s most precious to him, for us, His enemies.God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, which answers the morality issue.Is Jesus just an innocent third person like that young woman who’s just out of nowhere being?
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No, no, Jesus.God was in Christ, the Trinity, every aspect and action of each is the God at work.He bears himself his righteous anger.Wonder of wonders, and last.
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The big difference is, well, a big difference is at works.That is, He redeemed us by becoming a curse for us.He has done away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself, Hebrews Chapter 9.
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We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, Hebrews chapter 10, so that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.Done not because of anything righteous we’ve done.
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Not because of the purity even of our faith.It’s not a work, you see.It’s a non work.Not because of anything we might bring or say or do our ministries.It’s because of His mercy and the price that He paid out of His lavish, extraordinary, unmerited love.
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There’s nothing like this in any religion on the planet which tells you we’re in touch with the true God because we wouldn’t have made it up.We are saved by His astonishing act of taking the curse of sin onto Himself.
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And it’s full, complete and finished because of that beautiful TC Hammond quote.If I can get it right, the value of Christ’s death is in the infinite worth of His person.It’s because of who died, who died, God Himself, who is, who’s the substitute, who was valuable enough to pay the price for the sins of the whole world and reconciling himself.
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All things, but something is required of us.This gift must be appropriated, not by works.So whatever’s required, it’s a non work.It’s a non deserving work.
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You see, it’s something we must do.It’s the opposite of work.What’s required that you you appropriate?This gift is summed up by the word faith.But what does faith mean or what does it entail?What is being said by that shorthand faith?
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It’s this that you come to a place of utter helplessness before God.That you come to God like that adulterous husband and appreciate that your only hope of reconciliation is if he forgives.
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Not how often you say sorry.Not how many flowers you bring.Not how well you run your ministry.Not how good you are to the kids.Your only hope is His decision to forgive.
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You can say sorry 1000 times and cry forever.Tears or remorse, it doesn’t matter at all.To save you, He must save and He alone.What is necessary is a total capitulation before God.I am at your mercy.
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The offence I’ve caused means that if you cast me into the fires of hell forever, you have done the right thing and I await your decision.Faith comes with empty hands and until you come to that place in your life, you’ve not understood Christianity, you’ve not understood biblical Christianity, you’ve not understood salvation.
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You’ve understood the gospel and what you, you need to deal with something more profound than how to make your church grow.And so let’s sit with this just for a moment.Have you come to that place?Do you know what it is to come before God with utter humiliation, to know that my only hope is in him and if he casts me away, he has done everything right.
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Have you come to that place?You know there are, there are.This is what the apostles preached when they preached the cross.May I never boast in anything except the cross.
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This is what they’re preaching.You see that there’s no other way, There’s no other hope except the cross of Christ where God did all the work for us out of his lavish love.He became a curse, He became sin.You know, we have great sayings in our heritage.
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Faith alone, Christ alone, grace alone.Don’t ever think that they’re a theology test you must pass to get into heaven.There’s simply human attempts to give language to make sense of that heart that needs to come before God broken.
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We’re simply trying to find language.Penal substitution is just simply trying to find language to make sense of what God has done that we desperately need and have no hope without.That’s what it is and and when you understand the, when you understand the heart that’s required, you go.
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It must be a substitute under the penalty that I come to by faith.You, you end up having to be there.You see, there’s no other way, not the way of works earning God’s favour.It’s not possible.The only way is the sacrifice of God himself bearing in himself what we deserve.
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Have you come to that place?Have you come to that place?You know, I had my mother in church this morning at Erina and she’s not a believer, so I’m praying she heard it.
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But are you hearing it?If you have heard it and have responded with empty hands fallen before him, depending on His grace alone, you’re forgiven, you’re cleansed, you’re purified.
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There’s no condemnation.You are now adopted as a pure child of God, loved by the Father like He loves His Son.You are united to the Son and loved by the Father with the Son.All your pathetic attempts are washed by the blood of Jesus to be a glorious thing to Him.
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You’re no worm.You’re a child that there’s there’s no mental health issues that can undo you depressions.You’ve got now the cure for everything in your life, which is the powerful washing of Jesus who loved you so much that he gave his son’s life, gave himself for you so that you are cleansed to the very being, the core of who you are for the sins past, present, future, but more importantly for your nature.
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So the very nature that gives rise to those things, it’s been cleansed and purified.Yes, we still carry around the body of death, but we can come to the throne of grace. 1 John chapter 1.If you confess your sins, he’s faithful and just purified from all sins and cleanse you, you’ve got it all.Isn’t this the most wonderful message?
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You’ll never find it anywhere else.Which gives this incredible rock upon which to build your life and build your ministry.My, my, my constant reflection on my ministry is you failed again, Andrew.I could have done that better.Why didn’t you do?How come you were so.
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Oh, that’s constant, right?I don’t know what you see from the outside, but that’s what’s going on, right?And you know what?Every day I get up and go, thank you, Lord, it’s by your grace.And I’m saved not by what I do, but by the mercy of Jesus.Astonishing.
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Please let me be what I need to be.That’s the power of the Christian minister, isn’t it?And that’ll enable you to minister in a church that’s full of full of grace and forgiveness and love and life, because we now live by the Spirit, not by the law.
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Now this conference, though, is about the urgency of the work admission.So let me just finish for a moment on that.How does any of this speak to that?The world is totally at the mercy of God.Every single man, woman and child, no matter how decent, respectable, polite.There’s no hope in religious performance.
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There’s no hope in being good.Hell will happen not because of your failed or theological queers, not for slipping up.It’ll happen because of proud rebellion, because you won’t have God being God.And that is our world.There’s no hope except we have the answer, the only answer.
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There’s no other name under heaven, but we have it.We have the answer to the great and terrible problem, the only answer, the answer that of the most glorious kind.It’s not just an answer.It’s the most extraordinary answer, which overflows with love and goodness and exactly what the world needs in all kinds of ways.
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We have the most wonderful answer, the cross of Jesus Christ and the faith that it demands.But how can they believe it?We don’t preach it.How can we not preach it when we of all people know what’s at stake?
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Here’s the call to mission.No one need die in their sin when we have this message and God does not desire the death of anyone.And you know how much He cares about the life of everyone because He gave his own son’s life to save the world.
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Now yes, you can settle in the eternal decrees, the hidden decrees of God who elects and chooses, yes, but you need to sit in one Timothy 2, the revealed will of God, which is that He longs for all to be saved.This was no hobby for God, He gave up his very life for it.
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What’s too much for us to give up?Let’s pray.Well Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the extraordinary grace and mercy we’ve seen in the cross.Please let us boast in that all our days and we pray in Jesus name, Amen.
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Well, that was Andrew heard.And again, I think the most appropriate thing to do right now is to stop and pray, give thanks to God for his grace and his mercy.And I, I do really want to encourage you to take some time to do that.There is another talk in this series, so click on to that as well.
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I’m Pete Hughes, chat soon.
