In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of truly believing in the Bible and not just pretending to be a believer. He uses vivid imagery to describe the consequences of not believing, comparing it to a village being destroyed by a massive wall of water. However, he also highlights the hope and salvation found in Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself on the cross for our sins. The preacher encourages believers to be genuine in their faith and not to take it lightly, reminding them of the immense price that Jesus paid for their redemption.

Let's go to 2 Corinthians 5.21. We have been talking about the radical, total, holistic, pervasive depravity of man. I've used an illustration in which man is a rotting cadaver floating at the bottom of a cesspool. A cesspool that he himself created. Rotting in his own, the sphere of his own filth and refuse. And that in the incarnation, Christ coming in the likeness of sinful flesh, weighted the cesspool of our reality. If you think that is a harsh example, please understand it doesn't even begin to describe what he suffered, even in the incarnation. You should not think that suffering began in Gethsemane. That his whole life was a life of suffering because of this horrid reality in which he entered. Now I want to look at something that I said. That as he weighted that pool, took a deep breath and on the cross, he plunged headlong into it in order to drag us forth. In order to save us. In 2 Corinthians 5.21, the Bible says that he, that is God, made him, that is Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Now, you can read something over and over and over and it becomes commonplace when we may not realize that this is one of the most shocking, horrific statements in the entire Bible. As I said last night, if you were to go to a philosopher, a Platonic philosopher, Greek philosopher in the time of Paul and begin to speak about God becoming flesh, it would have been just offensive, scandalous to say something like that. Absolutely horrid for them. But look, we've gone even farther here. Not only did God become flesh, but the God who became flesh, he was made sin on our behalf. Now, what does that mean? You see, you can read that, but the question remains, what does it mean? Now, does it mean this? Does it mean that on the cross that Christ's nature somehow became defiled or corrupted or vile? Absolutely not. While he was on that cross, he remained the holy, unblemished, spotless lamb. Well, then how is it that he who knew no sin was made to be sin on our behalf? Well, the answer, as Martin Lloyd-Jones points out, is in the second part of the verse. So that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Now, when a person believes in Jesus Christ truly unto salvation, he does not become a righteous being. At that moment, he is not made into a righteous being. If that were the case, then every Christian would no longer sin, no longer struggle with sin. It doesn't mean the moment we believe, we become righteous beings. What does it mean? It means the moment that we believe, God legally declares us to be right with him. That's justification. It's a legal or a forensic term. The moment we believe, God legally declares us to be right with him. Now, I want to use a word that is exceptionally important that is often left off of this definition. And without this word, you can't understand your position before God, but neither can you understand the cross of Calvary. And what is it? The moment a man believes in Jesus, God legally declares that man to be right with him. And he treats that man as right with him. He treats that man, the word treats, deals with that man as right with him. And you don't really understand what I'm saying, and neither do I, because I would imagine that if we all did, we would probably all start dancing with joy. I'm in the fullness of what that means. That I enter into a new realm. Where I was in the realm of Adam, I'm now in the realm of Christ. I was in the realm of death, I'm in the realm of life. I was in the realm of law, I'm in the realm of grace. Realm of the flesh, now I'm in the realm of the Spirit. I've moved into a completely different realm where God has declared me to be forever right with him and will forever treat me as right with him. This is astounding. Now let's go back to Calvary. When Christ was on the cross, He was made sin, became sin on our behalf. It doesn't mean that the Holy Son of God became corrupted or vile. He was always the spotless Lamb. What does it mean? God legally declared Him guilty. And God treated Him that way. Do you see the transaction? Do you see the change? The one is impossible without the other. Our sins were imputed to Christ. And God declared Him guilty. And God, and here's the important word, treated Him as guilty. Treated Him as guilty. Now, I want us to look at several things that are very, very important. First of all, there is no way, in a sense, preaching is always a failure. And the preacher always fails, especially when he takes the topic of Christ. It's a no-win situation for the preacher. There's absolutely no way to describe the glories of Christ. There's no way to describe the terrors of the cross. It's absolutely impossible. But I want you to understand, when I say that our sin was imputed to Christ, even though it was imputation, the guilt he experienced was real. It was astoundingly real. This is not a ruse going on here. As he really was tempted. He really was tempted. He really bore our sin. He really suffered. He really experienced guilt. He really experienced wrath. And this is so hard for us to understand what it was like for Christ to bear that guilt. You see, we are a people who were born in sin. We drink down iniquity like it was water. We don't know anything but sin. We were born alienated from God. We were born out of His presence, out of His manifest favor. But the Son of God throughout all of eternity, all of eternity, had existed in this magnificent relationship with the Father. I mean, God did not create the world because He was lonely. God did not create the world because of some need. God created the world out of the super abundance of His relationship with His Son. He created the world for His Son. It's always, as I said, always been about the Son. The Father's always been about the Son. The Son has always been about the Father. And there's this mutual relationship. This is so important to understand. It's even very, very beneficial in witnessing to Muslims and others. When you talk about the Trinity and they say, why is there a Trinity? God cannot be love. At least, He cannot be love throughout all of eternity unless there were objects of affection. The Father, His object of His affection was the Son. The Son's object of affection was the Father. It's this glorious, magnificent thing. I'm a father. And I have to be very, very careful of lifting my children too high. I love my children. The greatest, just such a gift, my children. And Christ says to me, if you being evil can love this way, then I have no idea how the Son loved the Father and the Father loved the Son. And yet on the cross, the Son experiences His Father's displeasure. His Father's wrath. His Father's turning away from Him. Imagine if some of you fine young ladies who've maybe been protected all your life from the wickedness of this world. And I hope that's true. And you decide to do evangelism in some inner city place. And as you're witnessing to prostitutes, all of a sudden the police show up and they haul all the prostitutes away to prison. And they grab you fine ladies and throw you in with them. You see, the prostitutes are just sitting there in the cell, filing their nails, talking to one another, telling jokes. They've been there a thousand times. This is nothing to them. They're having the time of their life. You, you're over in a corner. Your heart is breaking into a million pieces. You're so ashamed you cannot even breathe. It doesn't even come close. As a matter of fact, it's a useless illustration to describe what this means, that He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf. Now, many theologians have said, and I totally and completely agree with them, that the most spectacular statement possibly that was ever made about the man Jesus of Nazareth is that he knew no sin. I mean, let me put this in perspective for you, because oftentimes we only think legally and externally. There has never been one fraction of a moment in your life, not even one moment in your entire life that you have loved God as God ought to be loved. Not one fraction of a moment. Do you understand me? Yet in the life of Christ, there was never one moment when He did not love God as God ought to be loved. You have not one time obeyed the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not once. There was never a time when He did not love the Lord His God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is absolutely phenomenal. I was talking to a man who told me he had not sinned in 16 years. And there are. It's a growing movement out there, actually. And I said to him, what do you suppose the greatest sin is? He said, well, I don't know. And I said, well, do you suppose that it might be breaking the greatest commandment? He said, well, that makes sense. So the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Sir, have you ever done that? If he says yes, if he says no, he's sinned. If he says yes, he's blasphemed. He's saying that he has loved God as God ought to be loved or as God deserves to be loved. He said, we've never done that, but that's all He did. I mean, it's absolutely astounding. There is enough glory in that truth to propel you through an eternity of piety if you just grab a hold of this Christ. It's absolutely astounding. And yet, he became sin. Now, along with becoming sin, the Bible says this, Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law to perform them. Galatians 3.10 Now, what does this mean? It's very hard to get your mind around the terrifying nature of what I've just said. Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law to perform them. That is you and that is me. You have not done all the things written in the book of the law to perform them. You haven't. The commandment under the law can be summed up in this. Do this and live. You've not done it. Not only must you die, you die under a curse. I've tried in my mind many times to figure out how can I communicate to someone the horrid nature of being under a curse. And the best thing I can say is imagine on the Day of Judgment when all the holy and beautiful angels of heaven, God in His court, Christ in His glory, saints that have been glorified, they're all standing there. And you stand there before them without Christ. And you are sent off into hell. And the last thing, because you are so horrid, because you are so full of iniquity, so vile, because now there's no common grace for you, you are under a curse. And the last thing you hear when you take your first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding and praising God because He has rid the earth of you. But we were under a curse. But then Paul comes back in verse 13 and he says this. What does he say? Christ! He became a curse. He redeemed us from the curse of the law. Becoming a curse for us. He became sin for us. He bore the curse for us. This horrid thing that we deserved completely, absolutely, without doubt, no one in creation would deny we were rightly under a curse on that tree. Christ bore that curse. Now I know that all of you are familiar probably with the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. There's a whole listing of blessed there. Well, let's just take that for a moment and flip it on its head. Instead of saying blessed, let's say cursed. And instead of giving the blessing, let's give just the opposite. The Bible says in Matthew 5, that the blessed are granted the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, the cursed are refused entrance. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? The blessed are recipients of divine comfort, but the cursed are objects of divine wrath. The blessed are satisfied, but the cursed are miserable and wretched. The blessed receive mercy. The cursed are condemned without pity. The blessed shall see God. The cursed are cut off from His presence. The blessed are sons and daughters of God. And the cursed are disowned in disgrace. You see, these curses belong to you. But these curses were thrown upon the Christ. They were thrown upon Him. Now, I want us to go on. And the thing I'm going to teach you right now is going to be something of a shock. But I think it will help you understand something about the cross. The Bible clearly says in Galatians 3 that Christ became a curse. He bore our curse. What are these curses? If you go back into the book of Deuteronomy, what you will find is that Israel was going through the wilderness. God divided the camp and placed one camp on one mountain and another camp on the other mountain. There was Mount Gerizim and there was Mount Ebal. On Mount Gerizim, they were to stand there and pronounce the covenant blessings upon the covenant keeper. The one who kept all the things written in the book of the law so as to perform them. And then on Mount Ebal, there was another camp that would shout forth the curses that would fall upon the head of the covenant breaker. That's you and me. Now, I want to just look at these curses. But in the context of Calvary, what really happened on the cross? You see, because the way the Gospel is preached today, you would think that somehow through the martyrdom of Jesus, through the fact that the Romans beat up Jesus, somehow because of that, our sins are atoned for. I mean, if I just took basic evangelical preaching, that's what I would have to assume. Let me give you an example. I was preaching several years ago in Europe. I was in this seminary. It was Germanic. Everything was written in German. I was taking a break. I was in the library and looking for something to read. Well, I came upon a book called The Cross of Christ. Now, it's not John Stott's book. That's a good book. But it was The Cross of Christ. It was a little book and I pulled it off. I started thumbing through it, trying to get to the center or the focus of the author's opinion. And I came to it, and this is basically what he said. On the cross, the Father looked down at the suffering that was inflicted upon His Son by the hands of the Roman soldiers and He counted that as payment for our sin. Now, I say that in many churches and people automatically start saying, Amen! That's heresy. That's heresy. You see, if you're saved here today, you're not saved merely because of what the Romans did to Jesus. You are saved because of what God the Father did to Jesus. I said that in a Southern Baptist church years ago in my first night of a seven day meeting. And the next morning, the leaders came to where I was staying and told me that the meetings were canceled because I was teaching heresy. Because I said that God crushed His only begotten Son on Calvary. Many of you who are in sound churches in one sense are living in a bubble. You have no idea what it's really like out there. You have no idea. Maybe you ought to thank God that you do have no idea. This next statement, as I said, I'm going to talk about these curses, but based in the context of Calvary, this next statement that I'm going to make is rather radical. I don't own it. I actually heard this from Dr. Sproul at a conference in which he was preaching. But basically he said this, and this is how we'll start our look at the curses that fell upon Christ. He said this, This is when Christ looked up into heaven and cried out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? The Father slammed the gates of heaven upon the Christ and responded, God, Your God, damns You. Now the curses. The Lord send upon You curses, confusion and rebuke until You are destroyed and until You perish quickly. The Lord smites You with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart and You will grope at noon as the blind man gropes in darkness with none to save You. The Lord delights over You to make You perish and destroy You and You will be torn from the land. The Lord, You are cursed in the city and You shall be cursed in the field. Cursed shall You be when You come in and cursed shall You be when You go out. The heavens which is over Your head shall be bronze and the earth which is under You shall be iron. You shall be a horror. You shall be a proverb and a taunt among all the people. Let all these curses come upon You and pursue You and overtake You until You are destroyed because You would not obey the Lord Your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. That is what you should hear every moment of every day of your life. And I assure you this is what those in hell hear every moment of every day of their life. But on Calvary, the only covenant keeper who ever walked this planet heard these words and was crushed under the full force of the wrath of God. As Christ bore our sin upon Calvary, He was cursed as a man who makes an idol and sets it up in secret. He was cursed as one who dishonors his father or mother, who moves his neighbor's boundary mark or misleads a blind person on the road. He was cursed as one who distorts the justice due an alien orphan and widow. He was cursed as one who is guilty of every manner of immorality and perversion, who wounds his neighbor in secret or accepts a bride to strike down the innocent. He was cursed as one who does not confirm all the words of the law by doing them. As a young Christian, even through seminary in which I was basically taught neo-orthodoxy, I would ask this question over and over and I'd ask it to people. I would sit there literally, and I guess this is why it's been the focal point of my entire ministerial life. I would sit there. And I studied hard in seminary. I made almost straight A's. I'm telling you that so you realize I wasn't some bum who didn't think. But I would literally sit there and go, I can't figure out how is it that what the Romans did to Jesus atoned for sin. And I would ask people this. I would ask even teachers this. I mean, He died and even carried our sin, but how is what the Romans and the Jews did to Him, what we did to Him, how does that atone for sin? It doesn't make any sense. And no one ever told me anything. And they never gave me the right books to read. And I'm out of seminary my second year. I'm in Peru preaching the Gospel. I'm reading through Isaiah 53. And it says, And it pleased the Lord to crush Him. And it was so shocking to me as those words came alive. I thought for sure that I had become heretic. I had never heard it before in my life. I had heard Jesus died. I preached Jesus died. I never understood it. And then I started getting some books by God's providence, Spurgeon and others. And I began to understand that the greatest problem in all the Scripture is that God is just. And if God is just, He cannot forgive you. He cannot. And the great question of the Apostle Paul is how can God be just and the justifier of wicked people? Because Proverbs itself says anyone who justifies the wicked is an abomination before God. So how can God justify the wicked? There's only one way. His justice, the demands thereof, must be satisfied. And they must be satisfied by the outpouring of divine justice. And so on that tree, Christ, our sins were imputed to Him. He bore the guilt of our transgressions. And the wrath of Almighty God was poured out on His only begotten Son. And so divine justice was satisfied and the wrath of God was appeased against His people. Brothers, we assume too much in our preaching. I can't tell you how many times Christians from all over the world have come to me and said, I've been a Christian for 15 years, for 20 years. I've believed in Christ. I've trusted in Him. I've rolled myself upon Him. He's the only one for me. But this is the first time in my life tonight I understand how His death atones for my sins, or why it was even necessary. No one ever told me this. How come preachers don't say this in every sermon? You see, it's not that the Gospel has lost its power. It's just hardly anyone's preaching it. In Proverbs it says this, like a sparrow in its flitting and like a swallow in its flying, so a curse without cause does not alight. So how did that curse alight upon God's righteous branch? Only because on that tree God's righteous branch bore our iniquity. And so the curse and the judgment could fall upon Him. David said this, How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. I've written here, Yet on the cross the sin imputed to Christ was exposed before God and the host of heaven. He was placarded publicly, as our brother said, before men and made a spectacle to angels and devils alike. The transgressions He bore were not forgiven Him, and the sins He carried were not covered. If a man is counted blessed because iniquity is not imputed to him, then Christ was cursed beyond measure because the iniquity of us all was imputed to Him. He was treated as the covenant breaker. Do you realize this? You know, when the Jehovah Witnesses come to my house, I always go, Listen, you need to understand something. Jehovah's only had one witness. And it's not you. Jehovah's only had one witness. He's only had one servant. He's our elder brother. It's the Christ. The only covenant keeper. The only one of whom the Father could say at all times, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Yet on the cross, the only covenant keeper was treated as the covenant breaker so that the covenant breakers could be treated as covenant keepers. This is amazing! This is absolutely astounding. Now, in the renewal of the covenant at Moab, God says some things. Now, I do not follow some of the modern scholarship today. I know that the Scriptures have to be treated in their context and all that. I've studied that. But Christ is on every page of this book. And any time I look at something, Christ, there's something in there. Now, I may not be as bold as the Puritans or as extravagant, but Christ is there. And I'm going to read you something in the renewal of the covenant that just tells me, yes, this is what He's saying, but there's something more in these words. He says this, the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will burn against that man. And every curse which is written in the book of the law will rest on him. And the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. Then the Lord will single this man out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in the book of the law. This is talking about the covenant breaker that God would take him and as we used to do on our cattle ranch, call him out. Chase him out. Separate him from the rest of the group. And pull him away. And set him outside the gates of the city. And there he will die. But the one called out was the covenant keeper. Our elder brother. Our Christ. Our Captain. Our King. You know, you hear the story, the Russian proverb about how a prince and his servant are in a sled and they're being chased by wolves. These wolves in Russia and up north in the Arctic Circle. You can't imagine. Probably in the south, you think they're just dogs. Their heads are this big. They're horrifying. And they're coming after this sled. And finally, the servant realizes there is no hope. We're going to die. And he throws his body off of the sled. And the wolves grab him. And the prince is saved. And everyone says, what a beautiful illustration of Calvary. No, if it had been an illustration of Calvary, it would have been the prince who threw himself off the sled. I mean, look, I love the law of God. I love all these different things. I hear stuff like this. I don't need any other motivation. I don't need to be promised a best life now. Let me rot in a dungeon. And the only thing that should come out of my mouth is praise. I mean, what else do you want? Look what he did. From where does true zeal, where is it birthed? It's birthed in knowing what God has done for you in Christ. And that's the labor of the pastor. It's constantly trying to show people what Christ has done. What Christ has done. What Christ has done. Set before them Christ. Set before them Christ. Now, of course, the unregenerate carnal church member will trample the blood of the Son of God, will offend the Spirit, will walk out and have no effect upon Him. But the sheep, all you've got to do is show them Christ. Show them Christ. Show them Christ. It is the brokenness of appreciation. It is the amazement of this astounding love that drives us to piety. Not some whip. Not a lash. What Christ has done. And that's why true preachers, they just crumble inside because they know they don't comprehend it. And they know even what they comprehend they can't communicate. I want us to go for just a moment, go to Numbers chapter 6. Here we have the Aaronic blessing. It says in verse 23 of chapter 6 of Numbers, Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace. Now, most people in that see a beautiful blessing. I see one of the greatest theological and philosophical problems in the entire Bible. I mean, apart from Calvary, inexplicable. Even immoral. You say, what are you talking about? These people were idolaters. These people were fornicators. According to the Holy Scripture, they worshiped demons in the desert. And the Lord is saying, The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. I mean, how can God do this? But you see, that's just the problem throughout all of redemptive history. That's Paul's argument in Romans 3. How can God bless the wicked? How can God justify the wicked? How can God bring the wicked to Himself? How can, in the forbearance of God, He pass over sins previously committed? How can He do that? As we heard about Satan a while ago, can you imagine? Satan sins against God. And there is perfect justice. Pristine retribution. He is judged without mercy. Perfect justice. Can you imagine Satan? God. And Adam. Adam. Did you give him a promise? Noah. You spared Noah. Noah should have died. What? Abraham? You call him your friend? He was a coward. He put his wife's life in jeopardy. He didn't believe you that much. David? David, a man after your own heart, you've lowered your standard a bit, haven't you? A son, you call him? He murdered a man. He committed adultery. How can this be? 2,000 years ago, I guess in God's providence, he got tired of answering the question. 2,000 years ago, he looked at Satan and he says, do you want to know how I can give a promise to Adam? Do you want to know how I can spare Noah? Do you want to know how I can call Abraham my friend? Do you want to know how I can call David his son? And do you want to know how I can bring this mass of humanity from all nations to me and pronounce upon them sonship? I'll tell you. Look to Calvary, because there my son dies for them all. Do you see that? I mean, this is gigantic. As dear Michael Card says, there's no fiction as fantastic or wild. A mother made by her own child. The frightened babe who cried was God incarnate and man deified. I mean, this is spectacular stuff! This has all the wildness and wonder beyond anything anyone could imagine. This is not churchy or religious. This is fantastic! It's the greatest story ever told. It also gives a whole new meaning, doesn't it? I have a brother that I love so much. One thing I love about him is if you ever ask him, brother, how are you doing? I'm blessed. I'm blessed. That's all you're ever going to hear. I can't wait to attend to him when he's on his deathbed. Because I know what I'm going to hear. How are you doing, brother? Do you know what's amazing? The only reason he can say that is because Christ was cursed. Be very careful that you're not trite. How are you? I'm blessed. I really am. Well, then what's the trembling on your lower lip? I have often heard that on the cross, I've heard preachers say this over and over, that on the cross, the Father looked down at His Son's suffering and could not bear to see the suffering of the Son, so He turned away. So what are you telling me? God lacks the moral fortitude to endure the suffering of His Son? He turned away because His Son became sin, became a curse. Do you see all those little tracts of ours that says man is on this side because he's a sinner and God's on this side because He's a holy and there is a gap between the two? How do you ever imagine that gap is to be closed unless someone dies outside the favorable presence of God? Someone who is worthy of the fullness of God's favorable presence. Now, when we're in the Garden, I want you to just imagine something. I want to go to the Garden of Gethsemane for a minute, but I want to go by way of Hebrews. I want you to look at something. Go to Hebrews 5. Just stay there in Hebrews 5, but I want to say something prior. In the book of Luke, I want to read something to you. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. What does that mean? That He really did enter into humanity and He really did become a man. He really did. Now, perfect in every way from conception to death, but every orthodox theologian realizes that He really became a man and He grew in wisdom. He grew as a child and as a young man and as a man. He grew in revelation, in His understanding of what all this was about and what He was going to have to face. And the whole idea... Now, let's go to Hebrews 5. Verse 8, although He was a son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. Now, what does it mean He learned obedience? It doesn't mean that He wasn't obedient at a certain time. Then what does it mean that He learned obedience? Many theologians have put it this way. The Puritans spoke about it this way and I agree with them. When I first came to know Christ as a brand new Christian and someone said, you know, to follow Christ you've got to lay down your life, take up your cross and follow Him. I heard that. And I understood it, didn't I? Just a little bit. But I understood it only in part, right? I've been walking with Christ for 30 years. When I was a brand new Christian, I was like, yeah, I'm ready to do that. I'm going to take up my cross. I'm going to follow Him because I had such a small understanding of the suffering that that would entail. So with what I knew at that moment about cross bearing and dying to self, I said yes. But then, a few years later, I come to understand that in a deeper way and what has to happen, I have to decide whether I'm going to obey again. This deeper expression, this greater revelation of what it means to do that. Christ, as He is growing, a thing is put before Him that is very, very difficult, and He obeys. But then another thing of greater difficulty and He obeys. And then another thing of greater difficulty and He obeys. He comes to understand that He is to die as the Lamb of God that is revealed to Him. It is brought to His mind. He knows it. He understands the prophecies. And He says, yes, Lord. And then as He gets closer and closer and closer to Calvary, the reality, what exactly that means, the horrid nature of His death, everything that's going to happen to Him. And with every new revelation of the difficulty of this task, He just keeps saying, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Not balking. Not one step of the way. And then He comes to the Garden of Gethsemane. And many theologians say that at that moment, the full revelation of the horrid nature of what He was going to have to undertake was revealed before Him. And as a man, He is sweating drops of blood. Take this from Me. Not My will, but Yours. Does that open up just a whole new idea to you? What's going on here? Take this cup from Me. I have heard preachers even say the cup was Satan. That Christ was terrified of the full onslaught of Satan. I've heard other preachers say well-meaning, will say that in Christ's omniscience at that moment, He looked forward to the cross and He saw the nails being driven into His hands and the cat of nine tails coming across His back and the crown of thorns and the mocking. And He said, O Lord, take this cup from Me. Let's just look at that for a moment. After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, thousands of Christians died on crosses. We understand from church history. Some of them were not only crucified, they were crucified upside down. Some of them were not only crucified upside down, they were covered with a crude form of pitch or kerosene and set on fire. Now, Fox's book of Martyrs, other books on martyrdom tell us that many of those Christians, they went to the cross singing hymns. They were playing the man with their chest stuck out, joyfully following Christ to their death. Now, are you going to tell me that all that comes out of the disciples of Christ and yet the captain of their salvation is cowering in a garden because he's afraid of the same tree that they joyfully embraced? What was in the cup? Well, let me read to you a few verses. First of all, Psalm 75, verse 8, for a cup is in the hand of the Lord and the wine foams. It is well mixed and He pours out of this. Surely, all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs. Jeremiah 25, 15 and 16, for thus the Lord, the God of Israel, says to me, take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it and they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them. What was in the cup? The wrath of Almighty God was in the cup. Isaiah says, it pleased the Lord. It pleased Yahweh to crush Him. That does not mean that God got some exquisite feeling of joy out of crushing His only begotten Son. What it means is that the will of God for the redemption of a people was perfectly fulfilled in God crushing His only begotten Son under the full force of His wrath. You would not be surprised within many evangelical denominations how many preachers and Christians not only disagree with what I just said, they hate it, and therefore prove themselves not to be Christian. They hate it. I had a lady come up to me in Spain trained in one of our seminaries. She was a pastor. She was weeping. She said, Brother Paul, the first part of your message I just really loved, but how could you? How could you? How could you do that? And I said, Do what, dear lady? How could you say that the Father crushed His own Son under the full force of His wrath? I said, dear, if I don't say that, I have lost the Gospel. It isn't so. It isn't so. That's not what Psalms 22 says. That's not what Isaiah 53 says. And I argued and argued until finally I said to her, Madam, listen, I have Augustine, the Reformers, the Puritans, and all the founders of the Baptists and every other practically sound evangelical denomination on my side. You have nothing. But infidels and those who pretend to be believers in the Bible and yet admit with their own mouth they do not believe the half of it. How can you not glory in these truths? Imagine for a moment, the joy of a city. Imagine this. You have a little village and it's an eighth of a mile from a dam at the very base of the dam. An eighth of a mile away. And the dam is a thousand miles high and a thousand miles wide. And it's filled to the brim with water. And one morning you walk out only to hear an explosion and the entire dam is disintegrated. And this wall of water is coming toward you. It will crush your village. It will crush you. The fleet of foot will not be able to escape. The strong swimmer will not prevail. You are all going to die. You are going to disintegrate. No one will ever find you again. And right before the wall of water hits your village, the ground opens up and swallows it down so that not one drop touches your shoe. What joy! What elation! What celebration! So how does this death of Christ... Why should it not be proclaimed this way? Does it not cause the greatest joy in your heart? I mean, just sit up all night in the dark and think about it. You can't even sleep. This is amazing! That's why the old preachers, they would just say, tell me the old story. Tell me the old story. Tell me the old story. My favorite preacher that ever walked this planet is Charles Spurgeon. And I have read a lot of Charles Spurgeon. And I say this not to attack him, but it is my delight, and I believe it is why God exalted his ministry. Charles Spurgeon only had one sermon. He was not a great Bible expositor verse by verse. It didn't matter where Spurgeon went. He just went right back to the cross and substitutionary atonement. I mean, he did. It's amazing. Just read him. It was always the same thing. Why? He couldn't get past it. He wanted nothing else. This is the one place where you can stop and go no further. Imagine a gigantic millstone about 10,000 pounds and another set on top of it. And one was moving counterclockwise and the other clockwise. You take a grain of wheat. You put it in between the millstones. A fraction of a second, the pressure is unbearable to the hull. Another fraction of a second, it's disintegrated into nothing. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abideth alone. But if it died, it bringeth forth much fruit. The fruit he's talking about is me. It's me. It's you. It's his elect. It's his people. It's his church. I mean, that's me. I agree with Edwards and I agree with Dr. Piper and I agree in glory in the fact that he did what he did for the glory of God, but we must not forget the truth. He did it for me. He did it for you. God is big enough not to have one contradict the other. He died for me. And if He died for me when I was a sinner, if He set His love upon me when I was as vile as we've described this weekend, how much does He love me now? How little should I worry? I love that old song, I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free. His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me. He died for me. You see, that sealed every question about whether or not I'm loved. Someone asked me one time, Paul, what would you consider would be the greatest blessing? And that is the greatest blessing in my life, a personal experience, was when I had worked myself almost into a grave trying to be a good servant of Christ only to almost break apart and to be laying on a stairwell in the third floor of an old building in Peru and at that moment to realize through the cross the issue of whether or not God loves me has been settled. I am. I'm loved when I do well. I'm loved when I don't do well. My sin is not big enough to rip apart this love. Now again, a carnal church member hears that and he says, let us sin that grace may abound. A true Christian hears that and says, oh, I want to be holy. I want to be holy. Now I want to give you something. I know we've gone on a bit, but I want to give you something. It's my favorite passage from outside of the Scriptures. I've named it The Father's Bargain and it's a dialogue that John Flavel puts forth in the first volume of his works. And if you want to meet someone who loves Jesus Christ, read John Flavel. Volume 1. The Meditorial Glories of Christ. Oh, I can't wait to meet him. He'd sit there and he goes, if I get glory for myself, it is only a paper glory, for I write as one who writes by moonlight. Do you see what he's saying? I don't write as one who has a full revelation of these glories, but someone who writes at night in the pale light of the moon. And he says, Christ is all fairest. He says, fair sun and fair stars, but fairer Christ. Fair flowers and trees, but fairer Christ. And then he says, no, I've wronged Him in speaking this way. Oh, black sun and moon, but fairer Christ. Oh, black and twisted flowers, but fairer Christ. Fair Lord Jesus. Well, Flavel writes this. He says, here you may suppose the Father to say, when driving His bargain with Christ for you, the Father speaks, my son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lie open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. What shall be done for these souls? And Christ answers, oh, my Father, such is my love to and pity for them that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their guarantee. Now, that's amazing. I take full responsibility for Paul Washer for everything he owes you. Now, listen to this. Bring in all thy bills that I may see what they owe thee. You see, what Flavel is trying to put across right now is this. You know, I have young men who come to me and say, oh, I'm so in love. I want to get married. It's so wonderful and all this stuff. And they get married and three weeks later they come back and go, what have I done? If I had only known this was going to be this difficult. You see, they did not know what they were going into. So like a lamb led to slaughter, they went. They went in their ignorance. You see that? That's not Christ. He didn't come to the cross and go, if I had only known. No, before eternity. He said, bring in all their bills that I may see what they owe thee. And with a full knowledge in eternity of what would have to be paid, He accepted to be our guarantee. But listen to this. This is my favorite part. Lord, bring in all their bills. Bring them all in. Now listen. Listen, believer. Bring in all their bills that there may be no after reckonings with them. Do you see what he's saying? Bring in every bill. Because when I pay it, there's not going to be any bill outstanding and no after reckonings with them. They'll never be dealt with again with regard to what they owe thee. You talk about freedom. Freedom? This is freedom. And notice that the price is being paid. I have been told that many criminals who have been pardoned later on commit suicide. Why? They were pardoned. But their crime was never paid for. See, that's not the Christian life. You're not just pardoned and there's some outstanding debt out there. You are pardoned because it was paid. It was paid. No one can say anything. It's paid. Now, Lord, bring them all in that there may be no after reckonings with them. At My hand, Thou shalt require it. I will rather choose to suffer the wrath that is theirs than they should suffer it. Upon Me, My Father, upon Me be all their debt. And then the father responds, But, my son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatements. He said, son, if you take this upon yourself, don't expect that I will diminish the punishment. Not one mite. You will pay for it all as though you were them. Now listen to this. It is chilling. It is horrible. It is beautiful. He says this, If I spare them, I will not spare you. That's amazing. Son, if I spare them, then know this, I will not spare you. And Christ says, content, Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon Me. And I love this next statement. I am able to discharge it. If that's not a proclamation of the deity, if that's not a broad-shouldered, deep-chested Christ, lay it all upon Me. I'm able to discharge it. I'll take it all down with Me. And I'll leave it there and I'll rise again. It's wonderful. Just look at that. I am able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, yet I am content to undertake it. We ought to be the happiest people on the planet. Not because of our circumstances, but because of our Savior. We ought to be the happiest people on the planet. And if you say happy is a trite word, you need counseling. We should be happy. Thousands of years before Christ came, God came to an old man. This is what He said to him. Take now your son, your only son, whom you love. Now don't tell me Christ isn't in these words. Don't tell me that. I will fight you. Christ is everywhere. I want you to know, if Christ isn't in every page of the Old Testament, then the Old Testament is nothing more than a bunch of moral stories. I want you to know that when Samson charged that city and pulled up those gates and carried them up to that mountain and cast them down, it was only pointing to one greater than Samson. It's all about Christ. And I would rather step over the line saying everything is all about Christ and trying to find Him there than to not go far enough and say He's not on these pages. Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which I will tell you. And so the old man gives in to the will of God, and he carries his son up there. His son shows no fight, at least in Scripture, showing us again a picture of the submission of God's Son. And Abraham takes back the flint knife, possibly the very same knife he would have used to circumcise his son. And as his hand is coming down on his breast to slaughter him, God stays his hand. And he says this, Abraham, Abraham, do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham turns around and there he finds a ram in the thicket caught by its horns. And he says, Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. Please don't ever use those words out of context. Don't talk to me about some house God gave you and say Jehovah Jireh. Don't talk to me about some new car you got and say Jehovah Jireh. You will infuriate me. Jehovah Jireh applies to us. He gave us a Redeemer. He provided a lamb. You know, when you read that story, you say when you get to the end and there's the ram, and Isaac is saved, everyone breathes a sigh of relief and they say, whoa, it was close there for a moment. What a beautiful, beautiful ending to that story. There's only one problem. It wasn't the ending. It was the intermission. A few thousand years later, the curtain opens back up and there's God's Son hanging from His altar, hanging on a cross. And God takes the knife out of Abraham's hand and drives it into the heart of His only begotten Son and slaughters Him on that tree. And now what do we say? My God, my God, now I know that You love me since You have not withheld Your Son, Your only Son, whom You love from me. As I close, I sit here, I can remember as a little boy going to these old churches where my grandfather would preach or Brother D. Long would preach and all these old sovereign grace men. And even though I was unconverted and I was not a Christian until I was 21 years old and in the few years before that lived like an absolute hellion, I can remember the outstanding picture of these men. They were a scandal to the world. They were old men in their black suits. But to hear them preach, to hear them just... I can remember one of them would just talk about Christ and go, And although I'm not worthy, I feel like I've joined that heritage. That's my heritage. Not the cool, not even the intellectual. These old men who found the old path and walked therein. You see, the only thing they had is Christ. They would scoff at you and say, The only thing I want is Christ. Christ! What more could I want? What more could I take in? Christ! Christ! Young men, those of you called to preach, you're going to have to make a decision. Will you walk in the old path? Will you determine not to dress yourself up to be acceptable to this culture? Adapt to their ways? Just long, you young men, be saturated with Christ.