In this sermon, the preacher paints a vivid picture of a person in Israel who has lost their inheritance and is in chains, serving a cruel taskmaster. However, a relative or elder brother comes to redeem them, offering to restore their heritage. The preacher emphasizes that deep within every human heart is a conscience, a resident light from God, which brings bondage when violated. The sermon concludes by urging the audience to recognize the folly of rejecting the redemption offered by Jesus Christ and to claim their portion in his death for liberty, freedom, and fulfillment.

Will you turn, please, to Leviticus, chapter 25. This portion is a, holds in it a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and explains why he understands and why no one understands like Jesus. For he is our kinsman, Redeemer. This is the testimony of this portion. I shall begin reading with the 25th verse. If thy brother be waxen poor, and have sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it, then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it, that he may return unto his possession. But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee. And in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession. And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold. Within a full year may he redeem it. And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations. It shall not go out in the jubilee. But the houses of the villagers which have no wall around about them shall be counted as the fields of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee. Notwithstanding, the cities of the Levites and the houses of the cities of their possession may the Levites redeem at any time. And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold in the city of his possession shall go out in the year of jubilee. For the houses of the city of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession. And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy bittles for increase. I am the Lord your God which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant. But as an hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be with thee, and he shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee. And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are my servants which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with vigor, but shalt fear thy God. Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you. Of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondmen forever. But over your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule one over another with rigor. Now, God had a very real purpose in all that you find in this book. For he was desirous of using this nation, Israel, as a testimony and as a witness to himself. And consequently, every rule that you find, every prescription that you find in the Old Testament, in the Pentateuch, is a great improvement over the moral conditions, the ethical conditions that prevailed up until that time. And with Israel, by establishing all of these rules that seem so tedious in the reading, God is preparing the way whereby he can have in Israel a witness and a testimony. He expected his people to retain their inheritance. It was his plan and his purpose that they should. But he made provision against their improvidence and foolishness and squandering of their inheritance. And in this testimony that I have read for you, in which he sets forth the place and the function of the kinsman-redeemer, God has fixed forever the fact that he anticipated the needs into which you would fall and which you would come. We've used it here concerning lands. But we must take another picture. We must go back to view man as he was originally made, as he came from the hand of God, made in the image and the likeness of God, and given a glorious heritage. The earth was to be his dominion, he was to rule over it for God. All that had been planted in it, all that was in it, was for his joy and his pleasure, his blessedness and happiness. But you see, man by his rebellion, by his treason, by his folly, squandered and wasted everything that had been bequeathed to him and given to him. And he, now more than that, he became a bond slave of Satan. He fell into a grievous bondage, a bond slave of sin. So what you have in this portion here, the Israelite dealing with his heritage in Canaan, is but a picture of a previous relationship where man was given a dominion, and God anticipated that man would rebel against him and would sin, would fall into sin. We began this series on Christ in the types and shadows in the Old Testament way back in Genesis the third chapter some months ago. And you will recall that on that day in which it was, he informed Adam and Eve that they were now to till the soil as slaves, as servants, having forfeited the rights that were theirs as those that were to rule over all of God's handiwork for him. He said, you shall till the soil, and by the sweat of your brow you shall eat, and the woman shall conceive in sorrow and anguish. Then the great glorious promise of a kinsman that was to come, for the word was, the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, though the serpent shall bruise his heel. The seed of the woman, one born of a woman, kinsman to the woman, one like unto her, one that will in every wise resemble her, be acquainted with all the problems and difficulties that she encounters and that man encounters. And so right there in Genesis the first chapter is this glorious prediction of the kinsman, Redeemer, the one by whose bruised heel the serpent's power and hold upon man shall be broken, and by which bruising he in turn shall be able to bruise the serpent's head. Thus, from the very first pages of the book, we have the allusions, the types, the shadows, the pictures of the one that is now called in this portion the kinsman, Redeemer, the one that is to buy back his people from the bondage into which they've come. But this text not only looks backward to Genesis, it also looks forward to the time when the seed of the woman shall come, when there shall be one born of Mary, whose name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. And the reason for his name is that he shall save his people from their sin. In Isaiah the 47th chapter in the fourth verse you read that the name of our Redeemer is Jehovah. That is his name, Jehovah. Our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, for we trace in this very name Jesus, the root, Jehovah, our salvation. Thus I would establish for you that what you are considering here in Leviticus 25 is simply the good news of the gospel of the grace of God, that slaves in awful bondage and servitude are delivered through the offices of the kinsmen, their kinsmen, their Redeemer. The earliest book of the Bible, many scholars feel, is the book of Job. It would be well for you if you have your Bible to turn to Job the 19th chapter and let his faithful testimony bring blessing to your heart. Again, I'm sure you've seen it in the past and are familiar with it, but as I say, many feel that the oldest book in the Bible, long before the time that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, that Job had been used of the Lord to give to us this record. And of course, we understand that whether that be true or not, this still is a glorious testimony. Verses 25 and 26. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. The oldest book in the Bible testifies that he shall see God because of the good offices of the Redeemer. Now if you'll please go with me back to Leviticus the 25th chapter. We come to the fact that there are just two things that could be redeemed. We must understand this. Just two things that are available for redemption. First, persons. We read that concerning the one that is given into bond service as a servant. He can be redeemed, and then possessions and inheritance. You understand, of course, that we immediately must press through this actual record here in Leviticus. We're not greatly interested. We are, of course, in the details that pertain to this, but we want to immediately press through to the meaning of the type and discover that we are the one that's involved here. We've spoken of Adam and Eve. We've spoken of those for whom the Lord Jesus came. But I would have you see that you are the one that by your rebellion and your treasonous revolt against God abandoned your possession and your heritage. We could dwell at great length upon the fact that we were in Adam at the time of his sin, but what we're concerned about tonight is the fact that when you reach the age of accountability, you did, as Eve and Adam and the family of men have done across the centuries, you pledged your loyalty by many subtle ways. Perhaps not in an open act of defiance, but by many subtle ways you gave evidence that your heart's loyalty was not directed toward Jesus Christ, toward God, but it was toward yourself. And that you had thus refused to have him to rule over you. I did it. By the same token, we know that our children, however spiritual our homes may be, are going to repeat this woeful process as the years may go until he comes again. Reaching the age of accountability because of the pressure of inheritance within them and the pressure of circumstance without, we anticipate that everyone is going to do as all up until now have done, sell themselves into slavery. It will be to Satan. Of course, he's so clever, he's so subtle, he doesn't put himself in the way here, as he does in some cultures, some lands. You know, he adapts himself, does this evil genius that rules this wicked world, to the cultural environment where he's operating. Here, of course, it isn't that you actually are bound to an evil spirit or to satanic worship as it is in some cultures. It's just that one has maxims and adages by which he lives, you know, all saws on which he plays. And these become the means by which he evidences his commitment. For instance, get while the getting's good. Look out for number one. If you don't, who will? He that tooteth not his own bazooka, to him it shall not be tooted. And other similar expressions of the contemptible egotism of the day and the age in which we live, where we find the whole spirit is I, me, my, and mine. Now, it's just good sense. It's practical. It's common sense. It's the wise thing to do. In other words, the atmosphere of the twentieth century and civilized culture in America is, just look out for you. That's enough. Just you take care of yourself. Now, obviously, obviously, this is what you have way back there in the Garden of Eden, or outside of the Garden, just at the precincts, where Satan, where Cain threw his brother Abel, and he asked the question in considerable contempt of God, am I my brother's keeper? In other words, I'm looking out for me. Let Abel take care of himself. It doesn't lead to that extreme everywhere in our culture, but nevertheless, this characterizes the commitment to sin and selfishness that you find in twentieth century America. This desire to please self, and aggrandize self, and satisfy self. And the chains are woven in the philosophy that grips the minds and the hearts of the people. The materialism, the sensualism, the indulgences that characterize our culture are all but insidious hidden forms of the chains that are woven around and forged around the minds and spirits of men. Now, in other cultures, I say it's a little different. The mother will take her baby to the witch doctor in many parts of Africa today, as in the centuries past, and the little babe, just a teeny little thing, you know, fit in the curve of your arm, just a few weeks old. And the witch doctor will take the dirty, filthy knife, I've seen them and handled them, just a little thing, rub it off on his thigh, palm, greasy palm, or in the dirt. And then while the mother holds the head of her little one, he will very, very patiently and carefully carve into the flesh the tribal marks. And from time to time the mother will peel back the wound, and he'll take soot from a cooking pot or ashes from the fire beside him, rub it into the wound so that when it heals, it will heal with the brand mark on it. And you understand what he's doing. This is a culture which openly worships Satan by name, bowing down to evil spirits who are loyal to the Prince of Darkness, who actually testify to their name and to their function and demand sacrifices, and through various forms of possession of the individuals that are called witch doctors communicate the mind of Satan. And so you will go into a tribe, and every member of the tribe has this characteristic tribal mark. You move into another area, and you will find another set of tribal marks, and still a third place in there is another set of tribal marks. And then in the cities, the centers, you'll find scores of markings, all testifying that they are of one particular kind of culture, giving loyalty to particular evil spirits and demons, and all bound in Satanic worship. Now the point is they're slaves, obviously slaves. They testify to it, they admit it. I've talked with them in times past and asked them why, since they all, at least for I, Ben, knew the name of God, knew that God had made the world, that God was good and holy, and he didn't make these fearsome demands upon them. It was evil spirits. And I've asked them why they didn't worship God or fear God or serve God. And their answer has been, well, why should we? He doesn't bother us. He doesn't trouble us. It's these demons that do. Now we recognize that the bond service of someone in Africa admittedly to evil spirits is just as truly to evil spirits in America. For when the writer, when Paul says in Ephesians, and you who were dead in trespasses and sins, walk according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air, that same spirit, literally, that same spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, such were we. And thus I establish for you this first premise that because of selfishness, because of pride, in rebellion and in prison, all men, including the company sitting here, who are reaching the age of accountability, without exception, we in some sense, subtle or open as the case may have been, committed ourselves to selfishness and sin and pride and rebellion against God, and by virtue of this became, by our own choice, self-appointed servants of Satan. Though we didn't see him, his chains weren't visible chains and his markings weren't visible markings, as in other cultures I've described, was nonetheless real. What I want you to see then, dear friend, is that if the man in Israel squandered his inheritance and lost his possessions, so if you and I tonight here have done identically the same thing to a man of us, it's not one of us that are exempt. God's word says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And so there are two kinds of people here, there are those who are now the slaves of Satan, are now the slaves of sin, and then there's the other class who were the slaves of Satan, and were the slaves of sin. But you can't divide it any further. There's no other categories that you can establish. Having fixed those two, you've exhausted the possibilities. You either are a slave of Satan and a slave of sin, having lost your inheritance, lost your possessions, in bondage, or you were. But there's no other alternative, nothing else that I can offer to any of you, except that if I am faithful and true to the word of God. Now, of course, you see, there are a great many that are outside, sitting there in the chains of habit and selfishness, pride, arrogance, and egotism, and rebellion against God, and the practical atheism, refusing to admit God into their lives. Chained, trust, hand and foot, and bound in every appetite and motive. And they look over at the Christian who, in joyous liberty, wants to keep his body the temple of the Holy Ghost, and keep his mind as a vehicle that God can use. And they see this one doing what he wants to do. That's the glorious part of Christian liberty, you know. It's to do what you want to do, and if you want to please Christ, then you're his. And this is the evidence that you're his, that he's put his law in your heart and causes you to walk in his statutes. And so someone sitting there, thrust up and tied up by the God of this world, looks over and sees the Christian doing what he wants to do, in glorious liberty, and said, oh, I wouldn't be in such bondage. Who wants to become a Christian when they don't do this, and they don't do that? And they're, ah, but they do what they want to do, you see. Liberty is to be doing what you want to do. But on the other hand, here's the person that says, I am free, and he lives a sensual, immoral life that characterizes the day of the illuminated and the released of our society, which actually, though they think they are illuminated, they're in great darkness. And think they're free, they're in great bondage. They do what they want to do. Their own whim and fancy is their rule. But do you know something? They're in bondage, because deep within them is this resident light that God placed in every human heart called conscience. And whenever anybody does that which violates the testimony in his spirit of what is right and wrong, he is brought into bondage. And so that person that's out in the world, apparently perfectly free, is in savage bondage, because deep within him is this illumination, this light, this thing called conscience, this God-knowledge that he's given to everyone. And violating that puts one into the very throes of a terrifying agony in slavery. Well, I just want to establish for you this principle that all of us here tonight have been our slaves. We either are or have been. We lost our possessions, lost our inheritance. What did God intend us to do? Like swine, to use our brain as merely an organ to gratify our appetites and satisfy our urges? Is that what God intended? Never. And yet, you know, if you go to the world as its carrot proudly struts and throws its chest back and says, we are the holders of all knowledge, apparently the end of being is to use the brain as a means of acquiring new and novel ways of gratifying the glandular appetites of the human organism. Oh, is that what God intended? Never. And will any extension of this gratification satisfy and make whole and complete the human heart? Never. God so marvelously constituted you, he so magnificently framed and formed you, that nothing in the universe can meet the need of your heart but God. He put into you an empty space that only he can fill. And what was your possession? What was your natural inheritance? What was that with which you were endowed when God made man? It was the privilege of knowing God, having fellowship with him, and in his person find completeness for your person, your being. And so no amount of sensual indulgence can ever possibly gratify the human spirit. In fact, there comes a time when in satiation all one can do is desire to escape from it. But oh, the fact that your inheritance, my inheritance, I'm made for God, made for God, made in his image, made in his likeness, made in his form, made in such a way that the inner part of me can only be completed and made whole by him. And this was the possession that I abandoned by my sin. This possibility of being whole, this possibility of being complete, the possibility of being happy, is absolutely removed from the person that's committed to selfishness. No possibility of being happy. The only one who has that possibility and capability is the one that's been redeemed. Well, there's two things then. What can be redeemed? First, the person and the possessions that were his by right. Well, just let me briefly answer this question, who can redeem? This is the most interesting question. And the answer is here in Leviticus 25. The only one that can redeem the person and his possessions is a kinsman. And who could redeem you? Only a kinsman, only someone like you. Let's bring the dilemma in which God would define himself, if we can view it from our human perspective. Here you, made in his image and likeness, committed to sin under the sentence of death because of your treasonous crimes. And God says, I want to redeem him. Oh, I would redeem him. But God is God, couldn't possibly redeem you, because it wasn't God that sinned, it was man that sinned. And the only one that can redeem a man is a man. He must be a kinsman. How then can even God meet this dilemma, out of a heart filled with an ocean of love, how can he bring redemption to you? Can't you see that God is God, can act in no sense in his sovereignty, and simply say, now you are going to be redeemed by God who cannot lie, has said the soul that sinneth it must die. He can't change that even in love for you. I've made the statement in the past that even God can't forgive sin. People have put their eyebrows up and thrown their head back and wondered why I was daring to contradict the scripture. But you see, God has spoken, and God who cannot lie has said the soul that sinneth it shall die. And God, therefore, cannot forgive sin. As a just judge, God must punish sinners for their sin. The only thing that even God can do is forgive sinners for their sin, when those sins are atoned for by another. And so it was necessary for there to come a kinsman. And the only righteous one that was in any way related to man was God, in whose image man was made. And God is God, couldn't die. But oh, if somehow God could just become a man. There it is. And so in the fullness of time, when God had his chosen vessel prepared, Mary, and she'd gladly consented to be the vehicle by which God could clothe himself with human flesh and personality, she was overshadowed by the Holy Ghost, and one cell in her body was quickened. Not by male life, but by divine life. And that cell became alive with the very life of the one who made her and made man. And the one that was born of her was none other than Emmanuel, God come in the flesh. Now do you not see what's happened? The Lord Jesus, reigning in celestial splendor and eternal glory, has reached the hour of his Father's purpose. I can hear it, see it. And he says, Father, the hour has come, and I'm ready. As it were, he takes from his brow the diadem of glory that he's eternally worn, and the robes of majesty that have been his without beginning, and the scepter that he's held, and with which he's reigned, and he lays them all by, and joined that next moment to the cell, one cell, clothed upon and by natural gestation and development, he's born God come in the flesh, submitting himself to the limitations of humanity, compressing himself in this way, that by means of the incarnation, God could become your kinsman. That's why it says in Isaiah that the name of our kinsman, our Redeemer, is Jehovah. He is going to become kinsman, and he does it by the glorious channel of the incarnation. With a nature like yours, with a personality like yours, with a body like yours, a nature like yours in terms of its humanity, but he himself perfectly God, perfectly joined, so that he is, as the Nicene Creed says, very God of very God, but very man of very man. Now what can he do? He can submit to poverty. He can become utterly dependent, as any infant is. You didn't choose your home. It may have been a home of splendor and riches. It may have been a home of poverty. You had nothing to do with the choice of it. He chose a home of poverty, so that he could experience all that would be involved in day-by-day dependence, for sustenance, for supply. And then to put himself under the dominion of mother in the home, and the rabbi in the school, and Joseph in the carpentry shop, and always the law eternally hears, for he had spoken it and was the expression of his character. And at the age of thirty, to have the silence of heaven broken, saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And now he has identified himself with all the changes, and the difficulties, and the problems, and the tests, and the temptations that you and I could possibly experience. He's our kinsman, our kinsman, our kinsman. Now the only one that could redeem was a kinsman, but the only one that could possibly redeem even a kinsman was the one that was able to do it. I've had many kinsmen, according to the flesh, but I haven't had any that were able to atone for my sins. I have some relatives now that would be able if they, if they were inclined. Isn't it strange, all of my friends that come to me and say, you know if I had a million dollars I'd give it to you for the Lord's work. They're the ones that don't have it. The ones that have it have never said that. It's a strange thing, a conundrum to me. I don't quite understand it. You know some people have lots of love and nobility, and some have lots of ability and no love. If they just get together occasionally it'd be magnificent. But it did. It did, you know, in the person of the Lord Jesus. Love and nobility are gloriously joined. All my kinsmen weren't able to atone for my sin, for every one of them must of necessity die for his own. But here is a kinsman, joined to me and joined to you, that had no sin of his own. The law had nothing to hold him. The law had nothing against him. The Father said after thirty years of intense scrutiny, and we now have two thousand years of continued scrutiny, and what God said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, history's had to repeat saying, we find no fault in him. The Lord Jesus was the only one who had the moral wealth and riches and perfection by which he was able to redeem me. So the two things for redemption were, he had to be a kinsman, and he had to be able to meet perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ. But you must see how redemption was affected here in the Old Testament. A man had possessions and his own liberty, and this he brought, sold, gave, disposed of in such a way that it wasn't any longer his. Now he would be redeemed. What must he do? First, there had to be a consent to the whole amount that was due the mortgage holder. Let's suppose it was a piece of ground. In his need, the Israelite had failed to trust the Lord, perhaps he'd borrowed money to meet the needs, or however it was, I don't know, but I do know that he was in a desperate situation, and he'd sold his inheritance. Now the only way even a kinsman redeemer could ever affect redemption was to consent to the total amount that was against the person. There was no bargaining here. There was no haggling here. The man who held the title, the temporary title to the land, the man that was in bondage, that held the Israelite in bondage, was the one who could declare how much he had against the person. And so it was in this case, that we find that we were in great bondage to Satan by virtue of our committal of will to his government. But we had incurred tremendous debt and forfeit to God because of our crimes. You just realize, of course, that when we begin in our dealings with God, as we saw in the trespass offerings, it's usually the things that we've done. But as we moved on into the sin offering, you discovered that we realized that everything that had come from us was contaminated by this thing of sin. Of course, with our unsaved friends, if you're here tonight, and those that are outside in the world, have no insight into sin, no knowledge of it. And when God begins to work with an unsaved person, the first thing he does is remind them of something they've done. And they become concerned about the fact that they can't make right the thing they've done. But after a little while, they discover that it wasn't only what they had done, but what they were. And because of what they were, everything was sin. God summarized it by saying, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and out of the heart come the issues of life. That means that everything that issues is characterized by the wickedness and deceitfulness of the heart from which it comes. Again, he says, the plowing of the wicked is sin. Well, why? Because the fact the person is ignoring the one who owns the earth and his government in the life, why even such a mundane activity as plowing. Now God counts to be sin. So we find that in calculating the debt that God has against the sinner, it mounts when it becomes stupendous, mountainous. How foolish are those among us who think, and you know everybody you meet has a plan of salvation. I think I've told you that. Everyone you meet has a plan of salvation. If he works for Murder Incorporated, then he is satisfied that what he's doing is legitimate business enterprise and necessary, and of course he's going to get by because he's never beaten his wife all the years he's been married. Though his business is murder, you see, he does have consolation in the fact that he's never beaten his wife. Or you find someone that's a terrible drunkard, and he will say, well, one thing he's never done, he's never stolen anything. And almost everyone you meet, however horrendous and heinous his crimes may be, finds some ease for his conscience because he doesn't do something that someone else does. And everyone you meet, everyone you meet, every person you meet has a plan of salvation in which he's resting and trusting. Pays his debt, says one. He's going to, he keeps a ledger, keeps, God keeps, oh how many times I've heard it, God has heavenly scales. And he puts my good deeds on one side, my bad deeds on the other, and if before I die, my bad deeds are way less than my good deeds, even God will have to take me in. How many there are that labor under such self-imposed delusions as these, but it's a plan of salvation. Not understanding the nature of evil, just as though a treason, a traitor, someone that had betrayed his country, could possibly have such an enormous crime atoned for by the fact that he gave alms to the poor on the sidewalk in the city to which he had fled, for his protection. Saying, well, I know I'm a traitor, but I do, I do give a nickel to the man who sells pencils on the corner, you know, so one equals the other. How strange that the human mind is capable of such indescribably plural rationalizations. But that's the way it works. That's the way the human mind is. Did you know that everybody that does, even these hit-and-run drivers that have frightened our populace to the degree they have, think they're doing perfectly right under the circumstances according to the delusions that occur in the sick mind? What they're doing is right. Every man acts at least in the light of what he possesses at the time rationally. And therefore, we come to the fact that so many think that by doing this or that, or refraining from the other, or practicing some benevolence, that certainly even God is going to have to be pleased with them. But we know that isn't the case. We know that the law says the soul that sinneth it shall die. And the death is one which is consistent, capital punishment in this case is absolutely consistent with the crime of refusing to let God rule in the life and have his place. No, God strips us, God breaks us, God said a lifetime of service, of praying, of fasting, of tithing, all the religious acts that you could compound and increase together, won't add one whit to your merit or make you one iota more acceptable to God. It's got to be paid for, every one must be paid for, and the mountain of debt can't be calculated. You're not redeemed with the blood of bulls and goats, blood of oxen, not redeemed by prayers, not redeemed by benevolent acts, not redeemed by charities. All these things fail totally because the law said the soul that sinneth it shall die. There is only one way of redemption. The law must be satisfied. Even God can't forgive the sin until it's paid for. The sinner can be forgiven when his sin is paid for. So the kinsman redeemer steps in, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you're the one that's held, you're there in the dark, you're the one that the law has grasped. And God looks at you and then at your redeemer, your kinsman. He is a kinsman who's been tempted like you are, without sin. He's experienced all the changes of life you have. The law is nothing against him, spotlessly pure and perfectly whole. And the kinsman said, I would meet the liability that this man has incurred. The answer that comes from the broken heart of God is, the soul that sinneth it must surely die. And thus the Lord Jesus Christ, as your kinsman, redeemer, steps into the breach and says, gladly Father, gladly. For he testifies that the debt is a just debt. That the requirements the law has fixed upon the heart are just. And when I say when you see the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on Calvary's cross, you have the highest tribute the universe could observe to the justice of God's sentence upon sinners for their sin. The glad exposure of his breath to the arrow of God's righteousness and the sword of his justice is the ultimate proof, not that God was too severe and Christ stood in the way of severity, but that the demands of God's law were the lowest that could be made. Perfectly pure and holy. And the Lord Jesus, therefore, takes your place, your stand, to redeem you. I've told you in times past, the four words in the New Testament that are translated redeem. And oh, what a lovely picture they give of this freedom that he purchases with his blood. First word that we find used is the little word agorazo. It means to go down into the marketplace where the slave is held and meet him on that ground and purchase him there, to buy in the marketplace. But then there's a second word used. It's ex-agorazo. And it means having bought him in the marketplace now to bring him out, buy him out of the marketplace. Chains, rags, still may be there. But there is a third word and it is lutro. And it means to lose. He gave himself for us that he might buy us in the marketplace, that he might buy us out of the marketplace, that he might lose us. And he strikes the chains of habit. And he strikes the putrefied motives and traits and tendencies. And these things that have been forged by long years as traits, fall away. He gave himself for us that he might lose us from our sins. And then there's that lovely word aponutroso, meaning he, he bought us in the marketplace and gave us emancipation papers, a writ of deliverance, manumission papers, so that we're never subject to bondage again. Oh, the glory of it. Our kinsman redeemer, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us. Kinsman, God's eternal son, becoming my elder brother, that he might die my death and satisfy the law in my behalf and deliver me from the great immense weight of guilt that I had accumulated. The kinsman redeemer. Oh, the lovely picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine the falling of someone in Israel that had lost his inheritance and was in chains, serving for some cruel taskmaster? And into that situation comes an elder brother or relative, an uncle, down where the man is held a slave, having looked at the great heritage that was his, seen it squandered, and he comes down to this one that is there in chains, grinding and working savage brutality. He says, I'm your kinsman and I'm prepared to redeem you. And the man there, chained and harnessed and working at this ignominious, depraved task, looks up and says, oh, leave me alone. I'd rather stay here than go back to my heritage. I'd rather eat the slaves' food in the slaves' quarters and in the slaves' service with the dirt and the smell and the filth of slavery than to go back to my home, back to my inheritance. Can you imagine anyone in Israel doing that? I can't. But I see people on every hand that are in equally disgraceful bondage to their appetites, their lusts, their habits, their glands, their lives, their minds. And when you come with a testimony that their elder brother has already in their behalf gone to the cross and died their death and satisfied the law, they tread on his blood as an unworthy thing and ignore the sacrifice of their kinsman-redeemer and choose to stay in their squalor and filth and darkness. Unthinkable. And yet it's happening every day. No, but for the grace of God, it could happen again here tonight. For I've been speaking to someone that came in, and I know not who you are. A slave, and the chains are beginning to gall and burn and cut and tear. Yet, if you were to have your way, you were to leave this room without opening your heart and receiving this glorious redemption that your kinsman already has purchased. Oh, may God show you the folly of trocouting the blood of his Son, an unworthy thing, and scorning the redemption that he died to make yours. Liberty, freedom, wholeness, completeness, fulfillment of being, all of this in the Lord Jesus Christ. Bondage, tyranny, darkness, death, temporal, eternal, to spur him. Won't you tonight see what your kinsman has done for you? The redemption he died to make yours, and claim your portion in his death.