Gospel—R. Thonney
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First Peter chapter one.
And.
Verse 18.
For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things.
As silver and gold from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your Father's, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish.
And without spot.
Redemption. It's what I'd like to speak about tonight. God's provision.
For man in his need.
You know, we live in a world where.
There are serious realities that man likes to avoid facing.
Sin, death, and judgment are things that you cannot avoid.
Sin is in this world, and you and I have been born into sin.
We have a sin nature. It's a disease that runs in our veins.
And you and I are guilty of sin against God. You may try to say, well, I don't sin that much. I'm not that bad of a person. It may be that that is so. But still, every single sin that you have committed must be accounted for according to God's holy character.
And you will give an account to him. You must face the question of your sins.
There's another verse in Scripture that says.
The wages of sin is death, yes.
You sin, there's wages that you're going to get for your sin. There is no way to avoid those wages. With few exceptions, every single person that has ever been born into this world has ended up dying. Doesn't matter how long they may have lived, and some lived a long time before the flood. They lived up to 969 years.
And they died. That's another.
Thing that you must face the question of death. It's a reality.
In the world we live in, nobody knows when that time will come, when death will tap you on the shoulder and say, let's go, and there's no way to stop it. When he comes, that's it, You're going, you know?
Last month I was down to the South of Santiago, Chile.
And to the South of that city there is an.
Lady who is quite distinguished in her accomplishments.
Is the.
X uh, mother-in-law of Sister Paulina Cataldo, who was at the conference in Tijuana. Some of you met her there.
She wanted to take me to see this woman. She is 95 years old. She is an atheist.
She used to be.
Uh, in the United Nations working with Kofi Annan and worked quite extensively in the country of Mozambique.
She is married to a man who was a minister of government in that country.
But she is getting down to the end of her life and she told our sister Paulina.
I don't want to die and I know it may happen at any time and I'm scared.
So she wanted to take take me so we could give her the gospel. We didn't get an opportunity to, but I have given her the gospel before and Paulina has left books there for her to read. Don't know if she's read them, but I would ask you who are believers to pray for this woman.
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Senora Teguada is her name and.
The fact that the Lord has put into the heart of dear sister.
Paulina.
To give her the gospel so that she can be saved even though she was badly treated by this woman's son. That I really believe the Lord wants to bring her to himself, but she does not want to face the reality of death. You know, it is a reality in this world.
And nobody knows when that moment will come.
So you need to be ready. Another reality that you must face. There is no way of avoiding it. Scripture says after death, the judgment. In other words, there is an accounting that you will have to do for your sins.
We speak quite often in a youth village, kids that are.
Detained by the law from anywhere from 12 to 17 years old.
Many of them have considered suicide.
And I say, please think about it before you do something so extreme, because the moment you die, the moment you kill yourself, you're going to go straight to God to give an account. Just think about that before you do it.
Oh, how solemn these things are. Sin, death, and judgment. There is no way to avoid those things. But God has a remedy, and the remedy is in His own beloved Son. Last night we heard that verse.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
But have everlasting life. Oh, God is a God of love.
But at the same time, he is a God of light, and a God of love is not going to allow sin to go on forever.
He's going to put a stop to it. It would not be a God of love if he led sin take its course without any control. No, He's going to step in. And this world is getting so bad on so many fronts that the time is getting close. We really believe that God is going to directly interfere in the affairs of men, and the Lord Jesus is going to come back to set this world.
In order, but the Lord Jesus came already once and I want to talk.
About this redemption that is in Christ Jesus, you know it tells us in Ephesians chapter.
One in verse 7. Let's read that verse just so you can see it in Scripture.
Want you to listen carefully as we read it. Ephesians chapter one and verse 7.
It says in whom? Speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. Look at one more verse in Romans chapter 3.
And verse 24 where we have that word.
Used again Romans 324 being.
Justified freely by His grace through.
The redemption that is in Christ Jesus. There it is.
In Ephesians 17 it says we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
According to the riches of his grace here it says.
We are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Redemption is the basis of all blessing, and if you're going to have blessing, if you're going to be delivered from the judgment of God, that will fall on this world.
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Then it has to have a righteous basis, and that righteous basis that God has provided is.
Redemption, it does say in another scripture, without the shedding of blood is no remission. That word remission means forgiveness of sins. If you're going to be forgiven your sins, you're going to have any hope of heaven. Necessarily that has to be on the grounds of blood that is shed by a sacrifice that God accepts. It cannot be just.
Any type of blood, but this is where we want to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God's beloved Son who came into this world. God gave him.
And it is a tremendous marvel to think that God has come into this creation in the person of His own beloved Son. He was born into this world just like you and I are born with one difference. He was completely sinless when the Angel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of the one that is called the Son of God.
The Angel said, That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called.
The Son of God, he was holy at his birth. You and I are sinners at our birth. That's the difference between him and us, the only difference. Otherwise He was in all points like we are tempted, but without sin. So the Lord Jesus lived in this world. He grew up. He spent most of his years, we take it, in a carpenter's shop.
What was that Carpenter doing in that shop for those years? I suppose making useful things.
Was that the purpose of his coming into this world? No.
But that's what he occupied until he was approximately 30 years of old.
30 years old and then he went one day to the Jordan River.
Where John the Baptist was preaching the baptism of repentance.
Because there can be no salvation, there can be no blessing in your life without repentance.
And this is something I think is so important for us to understand. You know, I was raised in the meeting like most of you young people were raised.
And I kinda have the idea.
In myself that, you know, I wasn't quite as bad as those people out there, those people down on Skid Row, those people in the prison, no, I wasn't quite as bad. You know what, I had to repent. God says there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
You can take the worst criminal out of the prison system here in Southern California and set them right beside me and I have to say.
On the grounds of the word of God, there is no difference. Oh yes, all those bad things came out of that person.
Maybe they didn't come out of Maine, but they're in there. There is no difference.
And I think it is so important that you know that you must.
Repent.
Repentance. So the Lord Jesus went to the baptism of John. Did the Lord Jesus have to repent of anything?
No, he was the sinless. Spotless.
Holy Son of God.
And John didn't want to.
Baptize him, John said. I have need to be baptized of thee.
And cometh thou to me. But Jesus said, suffer it to be so.
For so it becomes us to fulfill our righteousness.
And John baptized him, and in that way Jesus identified.
With those people that were repentant, he did not identify with those religious people.
That were unrepentant, but as he did, as he came out of the water, the O heavens opened.
And a voice out of heaven said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
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And the Spirit of God descended on him as a dove, and he began.
His public ministry. He was anointed with power by the Spirit of God, and he went out into his public ministry in this world, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead and feeding the hungry, preaching the word of God.
Oh, everywhere he went, he was a blessing to souls, but he had come to redeem.
And it was going to take more than a life of doing good.
To redeem your soul and mind. It was going to take blood.
And so the Lord Jesus at the end of those 3 1/2 years.
The public ministry.
Was arrested by those religious Jewish leaders and taken to Pilate, the Roman governor of that day. And even though Pilate recognized there was no fault in this man, he had him tied up and he had him scourged with the Roman scourge, and then he delivered him to the soldiers.
And they gathered the whole band of soldiers, and those soldiers were noted for their cruelty.
And they put a crown of thorns on his head.
When I lived in Bolivia, I got acquainted with thorns.
They were a problem for me when I was traveling around of my Jeep.
One time somebody who didn't like me put thorns in the road where they knew I was coming along. The next morning, all four of my tires were flat on the ground.
That's the kind of thorns. They're long, 3 inch thorns and they are tough as nails. They put those on the head of my Savior and they took sticks and they whacked him over the head.
They hit him in the face, they spit on him, and then, after all the mockery they did to him, they led him out of the city of Jerusalem.
To the hill of Golgotha, the place where man's head is empty.
What were they thinking? This is the Christ of God. This is the Son of God. This is the creator of the universe.
That they're taking out there. What were they thinking? Man's head was empty. That's the place where they planted.
The foot of the cross and they nailed those hands that had brought such blessing.
To a cross, and they hung him between heaven and earth.
And there he hung from 9:00 in the morning.
Till 12 noon, they passed in front of him to mock him. Not only did he suffer terribly.
From those nails through his hands and feet, I can't imagine what that must have meant.
But.
The reproach broke his heart.
They said he said he was the Son of God. Let God deliver him if you will have him.
For he said, I am the Son of God.
Did God deliver him?
No.
Didn't God love him?
Yes. Why didn't he do anything? You know why?
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
So there he hung.
And that 12 noon everything got dark.
And if it weren't for scriptures like Isaiah 53.
Perhaps we wouldn't understand what took place there. Do you know God is a holy God? He's going to forgive your sins. There's got to be a righteous basis for forgiving sins. Somebody had to pay the price for my sins and yours if you were going to be forgiven. And in those three hours when it was all dark, when nobody could see what was taking place.
God laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And then God poured out the fury of His wrath upon his own beloved.
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What it must have meant to God, what it must have meant to the Lord Jesus. And for three solid hours there is no complaint from that center cross. Silence as the waves and billows of God's wrath roll over.
Him.
And at the end.
In one awful moment he cries, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, the God who is his strength, and stay at that moment of the most terrible need forsook him? Why did he do that? Because he loved you. Because he loved me, and there was no other way for you and me to be saved.
God had to have a righteous basis upon which he could forgive sins. Then he cries. It is finished.
All the judgment that was against this guilty Sinner standing here was finished.
You know, I like to say it this way sometimes in the Old Testament, there were hundreds of thousands of animals that died in the Jewish sacrifices.
And the flames consumed those sacrifices, but in the case of the Lord Jesus.
The sacrifice consumed the flames.
There is therefore now no condemnation, no judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus.
Oh, the blessedness of knowing that redemption in Christ Jesus to be able to say we have redemption through his blood.
Jesus bowed his head and died.
Hanging dead.
On that cross.
And then a soldier came up the hill. John's Gospel tells us about it. You know, the Lord Jesus suffered many wounds in his body.
But it never speaks. Scripture, never speaks of the blood that came from those other wounds in his body, only speaks of the blood that came out of one wound. And John's Gospel talks about it.
A soldier came up that hill, and when he saw that Jesus was dead already.
Took his spear and put it into his side.
An outflow of blood and water. The awful price of our redemption was not paid with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.
Oh, how we should stand there and meditate on the awfulness.
The cost?
That's how much it costs God, how much it costs Jesus.
There was no more life left in that body, and that's why it's important to understand why the blood was mentioned in connection with that wound. It was to show that there was no life left in that body.
He died. He gave the ultimate price.
He died for our sins according to the scriptures.
He was taken down from that cross. He was buried.
And the third day.
He rose from the dead.
The Angel came down to push away the stone that was across the mouth of that.
Cave like grave.
Not to let him out, but only to let people see that he was not long, not any longer there. He was risen. Jesus came back from the dead. He rose by the glory of the of the Father. God was so satisfied with the payment that Jesus made for our sins.
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That he raised him from the dead, and he didn't quit raising Jesus until Jesus.
As a man was far above all principality and power and might and dominion in every name that is named in this.
World and the world to come as well.
Jesus is a living man of flesh and bones.
At God's right hand right now and he's looking at you and he wonders what's your response is to that redemption, you know, in the Old Testament.
In the land of Egypt, there was a plague that fell on Egypt. It was the plague.
Of the death of the first born in the land of Egypt. And since the children of Israel were sinners just like the Egyptians, God could not exempt them from the plague. It had to affect the children of Israel as well. There had to be death in every single house in Egypt that night.
But God did make a provision that instead of the first born dying.
There could be a substitute. It was a lamb that had to be without blemish and without spot. And that lamb was to be killed on the 14th day of that month, and its blood was to be applied to the outside of the door of those houses where the Israelites were. And as the destroying Angel went from house to house that night in Egypt, there was one only one question raised.
Is there blood on the door? He didn't say as this kind of a nice family or is this a bad family? Didn't say that.
That wasn't the consideration. The only consideration was, was their blood on the door.
And if there was blood on the door, he passed over that house.
That's why it's called the Passover and the next house is their blood on the door.
There was not blood on the door. He went in and killed the first born.
There were no exceptions from Pharaoh on the throne to the prisoner in the prison.
There were no exceptions.
You know, we're getting down to the time when God is going to intervene and judge this world, and it's bound to be, as Scripture has told us, the most awful judgment this world has ever seen. You know, we've seen some pretty dramatic happenings in recent times in our world.
The tsunami that took place over in Indonesia.
I think it was 290,000 people died.
And the tragedy was perhaps not so much them as the millions of people who were left without homes. Children without parents, didn't know where they were.
God gives warning and it's going to be awful. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew's Gospel chapter 24 that the time that is just ahead for this world.
Is so awful. There was number time like it before. Nor will there be a time.
Like it afterwards. And that time is just ahead. Are you facing the reality of what we face in this world? You know, people like to try to ignore problems. They don't want to think about it.
And they go off.
That is not the way to face it. God has a provision in the Lord Jesus. There is safety under the shelter of the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, the Scripture tells us.
God didn't leave the children of Israel in Egypt, He took them.
Plumb out of Egypt.
So after they were.
Delivered from the judgment of God by the blood of the Passover Lamb.
Then he delivered them. There's redemption by price, and there's redemption by power.
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And he took them outside the city, outside of the land of Egypt, towards the Red Sea. And there, on the edge of the Red Sea, they turned around and looked. And here comes Pharaoh with all his army.
And let me tell you, they were scared. You want to ask him right then, are you saved? I don't think they would have said yes. They would have said no. Look there, He's coming to get us again, to take us back. Yes, they had been saved from the judgment of God by the blood of the Lamb, but that wasn't the full extent of God's deliverance. There was.
Redemption by power, and so there.
On the shores of the Red Sea Moses stretched out his rod, that rod of judgment, and the sea divided, and the children went over the Red Sea on dry land through the midst of the sea.
The sea, the water, was a wall to them on one side and on another.
And they got over to the other side, and Pharaoh came in after them with all his hosts.
But God took off the chariot wheels and you can imagine the Pandonium that must have resulted as they started realizing things were not going well. And then Moses was told to stretch out his rod again on the wilderness side of the Red Sea. And he did, and the waters closed over and buried all those enemies. You know what? Not only has God delivered you.
From the judgment to come. But He has delivered you from every enemy that could possibly be against you. That's the deliverance of God. So the children of Israel.
Looked in there on the seashore where all their enemies dead.
You know that God has provided for your deliverance, your complete deliverance.
Every enemy that is against you, he has gained the victory over that enemy.
You know, I think of young people sometimes. I see them Even so, some that are supposedly believers.
They struggle, struggle with themselves. Do you know that God has delivered us from ourselves even?
Yes, he has.
Christ is now our life. Brother Don mention that verse in Galatians 2 today where Paul says I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.
Notice this part.
Yet not I.
But Christ liveth in me. Do you know what your life?
Your Christian life is not what you see in yourself. Your Christian life is what you see in the Lord Jesus Christ, because He is now our life, and you are delivered from that if you will understand the place that you've been brought.
There's one other point in which deliverance is still future. This body I have has its aches and pains. Sometimes it gets sick. We don't have yet the redemption of our body. When the Lord Jesus comes, our redemption will be complete. Let me quote you those words. I thrill at them when that redemption will be complete.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God.
And the dead in Christ shall be raised first, then we which are alive and remain.
Shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever.
Be with the Lord O how those verses thrill my soul.
You know, some time ago I was in.
Vincennes IN.
You know, walking down the aisle of the store and I hear those words being quoted.
And I stopped. I said, where in the world am I?
I thought it was in Walmart.
And you know how they have those monitors around the store? And I stopped and looked at the monitor and it was after 911.
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And there was a United States Air Force chaplain reading those words out of scripture. I just thrilled. Oh, the thrill it's going to be when we hear that trumpet sound and that shout given. And we're not going to be here any longer. We're going to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air for this corruptible must put on incorruption.
And this mortal must put on immortality. So in this corruptible shall put on incorruption, And this mortal shall put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying Death is swallowed up in victory.
What a victory, what a victory.
You know what concerns me here tonight?
Is that there is a very real possibility that there are some here that take the place of being a Christian. Maybe you're baptized, maybe even break bread that you haven't got it straight with God yet. That concerns me. Amongst the Lord's own disciples, 12 disciples, there was one that was false.
You know what? The other 11 didn't have a clue that Judas was false. Maybe nobody has a clue that you're false, that you haven't got it straight. You know right where you're sitting in your heart of hearts, you know you're not straight. I'm asking you in the bottom of my heart, and I'm sure there are those that join with me in that plea. Get it straight tonight.
If you haven't done it yet.
There's any questions?
We'll be here after the meeting. We'd be glad to talk to you to answer your questions. But how important to get it straight. God is going to intervene according to the very words of Scripture. He's going to shake terribly this earth.
Now, have you been in earthquakes? Some of you out here in Southern California know what earthquakes are.
But they're not pleasant experiences. I've been in a number in El Salvador and Central America, amongst other places. But God, the major earthquake is still ahead. What they say out here in Southern California, the big one is still ahead. Are you ready? There is redemption tonight in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is forgiveness of sins.
Because of that redemption, there is justification.
You can be justified from all things by which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
And we ask with all our heart that if you haven't got it straight.
Do so tonight.
Let's just pray, Father.