In this sermon, the preacher discusses the purpose of Jesus' crucifixion and the role of Satan in trying to thwart God's plan. The preacher emphasizes that Jesus willingly went to the cross, knowing that it was necessary for Satan to lose his power over humanity. The preacher references John 12:31, where Jesus declares that the judgment of the world is at hand. The preacher also draws parallels to the story of Esther, highlighting how Satan's focus shifted to Jesus in his attempt to destroy the promised seed.

Will you turn once again to the book of Esther? We're going to read chapter six and chapter seven. This is a bible reading and we don't dismiss the straight reading of the word of God as of not of supreme importance it is. Yesterday we saw Esther going in to intercede on behalf of her people and all she did was to invite the king and Haman to a feast and when she got them there all she did was to invite them a second time. And we saw verse nine how Haman went forth that day joyful and with a glad heart but his joy was only spoilt by the fact that there was Mordecai refusing to tremble and prostrate himself before him. And he told his family all the wonderful promotions he'd had and then he said in verse 13 yet all this availed me nothing so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate. And then his family suggested well why should he sit there any longer you needn't wait for the 13th day of the 12th month. Let a gallows be made a 50 cubits high tomorrow and speak to the king that he hanged Mordecai upon him and then you'll go in and really enjoy your banquet. Chapter six. On that night could not the king sleep and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles and they were read before the king and it was found written that Mordecai had told of Dixana and Teresh two of the king's chamberlains the keepers of the door who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. And the king said what honor and dignity has been done to Mordecai for all this. Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him there is nothing done for him. And the king said who is in the court. Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king's house to speak unto the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. And the king's servants said unto him behold Haman stands in the court and the king and the king said let him come in. So Haman came in and the king said unto him what should be done unto the man whom the king delighted to honor. Now Haman thought in his heart to whom would the king delight to do honor more than to myself. And Haman answered the king for the man whom the king delighted to honor let the royal apparel be brought which the king uses to wear and the horse that the king rideth upon and the crown royal which is set upon his head. And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes that they may array the man with all whom the king delighted to honor and bring him on horseback through the street of the city and proclaim before him thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighted to honor. Then the king said to Haman make haste and take the apparel and the horse as thou hast said and do even so to Mordecai the Jew that sitteth at the king's gate. Let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. Someone said to me that God was rather a humorist. Nothing very humorous for Haman that day. And even Mordecai was astonished. Extraordinary turn of events that he never even anticipated. Then took Haman the apparel and the horse and arrayed Mordecai and brought him on horseback through the street of the city and proclaimed before him thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor. And Mordecai came again to the king's gate but Haman hasted to his house mourning and having his head covered and Haman told his wife and all his friends everything that is before him. Then said his wise men and there is his wife unto him if Mordecai I be of the seed of the Jews before whom thou hast begun to fall thou shalt not prevail against him thou shalt surely fall before him. And while they were yet talking with him came the king's chamberlain and hasted to bring Haman unto the banquet that Esther had prepared. But he didn't go in merrily he went in with a heavy heart full of solemn foreboding as to what was coming upon him. So the king and Haman came to the banquet with Esther the queen and the king said again unto Esther on the second day of the banquet of wine what is thy position thy petition queen Esther and it shall be granted thee and what is thy request and it shall be performed even to the kingdom. Then Esther the queen answered and said if I have found favor in thy sight oh king and if it pleased the king let my life be given me at my petition and my people at my request for we are sold I and my people to be destroyed to be slain and to perish but if we had been sold for bomb men and bomb women I had held my tongue although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage I think that means that if it had merely been slain we had been sold to be I wouldn't have said anything but we are told to be destroyed and no matter what money may come into the king's treasury nothing can compensate you for the services of this scattered people who are already performing valiant service for your kingdom I think that's what that means. Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen who is he and where is he that doth presume in his heart to do so and Esther said the adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen and the king arising from the banquet of wine in his walk went into the palace garden to cool down perhaps and Haman stood up to make requests for his life to Esther the queen for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king then the king returned out of the palace garden into the palace place of the banquet of wine and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was then said the king will you force the queen also before me in the house as the word went out of the king's mouth they covered Haman's face and Harbonah one of the chamberlains said before the king behold also the gallows 50 cubits high which Haman had made for Mordecai who had spoken good for the king it's standard in the house of Haman then the king said hang him thereof so they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai then was the king's walk pacified on that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the jew's enemy unto Esther the queen and Mordecai came before the king for Esther had told what he was unto her and the king took off his ring which he had taken from Haman and he gave it unto Mordecai and Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman well it's very good reading isn't and there it stood recorded in the chronicles of the kings of the Medes and Persians and it seems it was from there that the Hebrew copies took it and were guided to include it in the canon of scripture for it revealed the hand of God so unmistakably and was indeed a turning point in their nation's history but for that they would have been largely exterminated now yesterday and the previous days we have seen first of all the wicked plot that Haman hatched and which seemed to succeed so well so much so that the Israelites were under sentence of death only waiting the hour of execution on the 13th day of the 12th month the letters had already gone everybody was prepared to knock off old scores and destroy utterly that people then we saw that that condemned people nonetheless had a representative one of their own right in the king's palace Esther and we saw yesterday that she was prepared to go in and intercede on behalf of her people now what was planned quite evident by the god who was standing in the shadows was something more than an alleviation of the situation for Israel it was something more than a delay of execution it was even something more than a cancellation of the edict in any case as we shall see tomorrow to cancel that edict was virtually impossible another way had to be found round because the law of the needs of persons couldn't be altered but more of that tomorrow no what was planned was something more than even that if it were possible what was planned by god was first of all the humiliation and utter destruction of the one who'd engineered the plot against his people more than that what was it what was planned was the exhortation of Mordecai to a place as high as haven even higher so that the people would always know there was one of their own supreme prime minister over the whole kingdom and their delivery was based on those two facts if there was some sort of alleviation or even remission of that edict as long as hayman was there they would never feel safe they would have an enemy right in the king's palace and even if he was removed how would they know who the next prime minister would be they could only feel really at peace and assured if there was a Mordecai one one of their own entrusted with supreme authority and who would exercise it continually on their behalf and so their deliverance would be based on complete solid foundation and that was what was done and it wasn't just they were saved from death as we shall see tomorrow it was the most complete reversal they took them captive as it says somewhere whose captives they were those who thought they had the dominion over them found that israel had the dominion over them instead it was the most glorious victory i'd like to think that phrase it says thanks be unto god who loved us in romans 8 we are more than conquerors so him that loves us is there a difference between a conqueror and more than a conqueror maybe there is a conqueror is a man who fights who wins after a fight but more than a conqueror one who wins without a fight the whole thing falls right into his hands and that certainly was what was planned and what actually happened on behalf of israel now what is planned for us is something more than the forgiveness of sin something more than the fact that god's getting a big time something more than the fact that perhaps god will listen to the pleadings of his son on our behalf that's a very wrong thought ever to have jesus did not have to persuade our reluctant god to be merciful to us it was a merciful god who provided the savior to be our substitute and thus give him righteous grounds on which to say no it was something more than mere remission of penalty mere alleviation of our situation god came to effect our salvation in style above all he's going to get some glory out of it he's going to do it in such a way that heavenly intelligences will fall down and wonder at the wisdom and the grace of their god they're going to be surprised as well as me god is going to affect the humiliation and the complete destruction of satan's power if that is not removed we don't know where we are from day to day we may feel all right today and have a sense of forgiveness but if satan has still got his right to condemn as wesley called it satan's mortal power you don't know where you are you may still go back into the old ways of darkness no god's going to deal with our enemies he's going to deal in the blow which he from which he will never require a recovery more than that god is going to put one at his right hand our mortal care who's going to be entrusted with all authority in heaven and earth and who's going to use that authority for one purpose the blessing and prosperity of the weakest and the most sinful of his people and our deliverance from sin and its power our salvation depends on those two glorified the fact that satan's power has been destroyed and the son of god has been exalted to god's right hand given all authority and it's all he's all there is there only and all for us for his people and uh there are many scriptures that speak of this salvation in the grandest way possible it says in ephesians he when he rose he led captivity captive just that he himself became a captive father but he led captivity captive the captor who had captured him became a captive and all the change of his captivity were led away to the whole wretched belson concentration camp and then it says i think deborah's song not only that you are to lead your captivity captive lead by captivity captive because he's led our captivity captive you may too and god intends that his people should be on top and not underneath that they should lead them captives whose captives they were but they should be more than conquer through him that loved us in all things triumphant in the bible sense of triumph and victory and so that was what was planned now will you turn to what i think is a very important scripture romans 5 23 5 21 rather romans 5 21 as sin hath reigned unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by jesus christ you have there the reign of sin and the reign of grace sin reigning sin having dominion over men tyrannizing them again i remind you what the reign of sin consists in it doesn't only consist in the fact you find yourself keep on doing the same sin you may have no particular bad habit but you're completely under the reign of sin nonetheless the reign of sin is its guilt is its power condemned and that basis and on top of that much trouble apart complications repair and because you can't know something better in life there's nothing else but to go on committing the same sin to get a little bit more pleasure but had you found something better in life you wouldn't be falling to that same sin but sin has power is reigning us condemning us giving us a continual sense of wrong a the whole world if they're sensitive at all are dogged with a sense of not being good enough usually they forget it in the world they've only got to come to a conference like that and they've got it real bad and that some here have got it real bad you feel you're not good enough you feel out of place you feel a fish out of water sometimes it's so acute that people have longed to get away from apogee two weeks ago a girl came she spent one night the next day she went she said everybody's been so sweet but i felt absolutely outside she's under dominion of sin you see it's not one particular thing just she knew what sort of life she'd been living just away in the world and then oh i'm not in this i'm too bad i'm not good enough i can't stand this light that's the reign of sin that's being under the dominion of sin and we're having it the whole time in one way and another and there's lots more coming for it lots more on that basic sort of sense of not being good enough and having a sense of guilt there's going to be a lot more built and if you die in your sins the ultimate will be eternal death that is not cessation of being but separation from god forever and it would seem from the scripture conscious separation from the only source of happiness and all this is based on law what gives sin its right to reign over us the very law of god does the very law says the wages of sin is death in all its various forms and the one who's engineered the whole situation and delights to add to it and rub salt into the wounds is safe therefore therefore we see the reign of sin as sin has reigned unto death from adam's day to this sin has been reigning with a moral right to reign because we have done what we have we are under the dominion of sin both in this life and if we don't repent in the next life forever but this verse talks about another reign the reign of grace now shall we get this very clearly that in god's vocabulary the opposite to sin is not good the world's way they talk about good and evil the forces of good and evil what a lot of nonsense there aren't any forces of good that are anything a match for the forces of evil evil has triumphed over the good no in god's vocabulary the opposite to sin is great in your thought is it sin and grace the reign of sin the reign of grace man's sin reigning god's grace reigning do you know what grace is it's the undeserved love of god emphasis on being undeserved and the love of god is undeserved he doesn't love many of the undeserved the deserving cases because there aren't any his love is for those that don't deserve it and the more the less desert there is the bigger the abundance of grace you can't defeat grace for that reason you can't defeat it this is god this isn't just a sort of side attribute of the divine nature it is god this is what jesus revealed we see god the god of all grace the tanks not accountable what's the kind of a miserable to give men what they don't deserve to heap benefits upon benefits on the head of those that could otherwise be accounted as enemies if you want a modern phrase rather a long word but i like it magnanimity big hearted and when we were in germany when i used this i had the case interpreter now look i'm going to talk about grace and i'm going to use this word magnanimity we've got the german word yes easy gross hair slick type big heartedness that's god some of us are oh we mark a man's offenses and we're not going to give him a little bit more than he deserves in towards our children how gratuitous i found myself to be not so god he sends his rain on the just and on the unjust the fact is that all the sin of man hasn't been able to provoke god to be man's enemy for one second he is man's friend although man has still his back to him now i ask you which you think is greater man's sin or god's grace well sometimes it takes some believing but you've got to believe it grace that is greater than all my sin and is sin going to have a rain and not grace and is it going to be that the rain of sin is going to be shown to be greater and more gripping of the rain of grace never and this is what god is working out what he's going to demonstrate ultimately to a a wandering universe the ray that has sin has reigned unto death even so grace shall reign through righteousness unto eternal life by jesus christ and we live in the day we've got to realize and have it revealed to us we live in a day when grace reigns and as we shall see through the work of our lord jesus the reign of sin has come to an end potentially from his side and you needn't be under that dominion for one moment longer than it takes you to repent and call sin sin the reign of sin and death is all says wesley and all may live from sin set free satan has lost his mortal power it is swallowed up in victory but listen grace has got to reign through righteousness it's got to have a foundation as solid and as legal as sin's reign my god to know that thou art just gives rest and peace within i could not in a mercy trust which takes no count of sin and what we've got pictured for us in these this next incident of esther is is the establishment of the reign of grace wasn't enough for uh as you is to have kindly thought toward the jews as long as hayman was there as long as he had any right over the people it's got to be settled on the most just and deepest foundations and so that's it grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by jesus christ our lord am i right when i say this is a marvelous all-inclusive text reign of sin the reign of grace but grace reigning through righteousness and that's what you've got pictured for us here now turning back to our story we don't need to go too much of the details because we read it and it no one could tell it more graphically than you've already heard in the bible now hayman has succeeded in bringing the nation he hates for more decay i say under death it's only a matter of waiting for the hour and they're finished but now he turns from the people to more to care coming out joyful he sees this man refusing to grovel like the others do and he's so full of raw and it's the one thing that's spoiling everything and whereas he can tell of so many things that have come to him he says in six in 5 13 all this out there this means nothing so long as i see the more decay the jews sitting at the king's gate he just couldn't wait for the 13th day of the 12 months he itched to wreck a special and peculiar vengeance on this one man and his family said well why not and they conceived the plan of building the gallows in his backyard his back garden and then him going in to ask the king that he should hang more decay upon it please turn the cassette over now do not fast wind it in either direction now now that is exactly parallel in the great matter of our redemption the devil has succeeded in bringing the whole human race subject to death he seems to have triumphed he's got he's ruined the world which god made to the sorrow of god's heart but all this for variously nothing and so to speak says as long as there's one person higher than me among us the lord jesus the son of god yet occupies the pre-eminent place and swaps all my ambitions to take that place and so satan turns all his attention on the lord jesus christ you see that in the gospels what was that massacre that herod was provoked to institute of the children if it wasn't satan trying to kill the promised seed but god protected that precious babe what was the temptation of the wilderness but a subtle way of accomplishing the overthrow of the son of god so that jesus should fall down to satan and use satan's means to win the world what was that sudden squall in the lake of galilee in which the boat nearly sank if it had been nothing as long as there's jesus the eternal son and now he's left heaven i couldn't touch him there i've got my chance and eventually he conceived the plan of erecting a gallows and the hebrew word is a tree together on which he would hang the son of god but he couldn't do it until god said so again and again the lord jesus said my hour is not yet come at last he said this is your hour and the power of darkness and god said now's the hour not the hour of defeat it's the hour of victory let him do it now and satan found his opportunity he stirred up jews and high priests and the cry went out crucify him crucify this is your hour said jesus and the power of darkness did you not know did you not know how it was going to end you say oh god what about those 12 legions of angels send them quick the whole of thy purpose is in jeopardy it was nothing of the sort this is the purpose by which he's going to set a captive race free more to care i didn't actually have to go the way of the one whom he pictures jesus had to actually hang on those gallows but that was the way by which satan was going to lose his mortal power over the sons of men will you turn to john chapter 12 verse 31 and these are the words of the lord jesus as he enters the shadow of the cross now is the judgment of this world john 12 31 now shall the prince of this world be cast out and i if i be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me he wasn't talking about being lifted up on a throne which he so what wonderfully merited but being lifted up on a cross and he says i'm going to draw all men unto me and by that cross men are going to be set free whom satan has enslaved and so they he let them do it and there was joy in hell for three days there's an old hymn in sanki and you've still got some of your best ones in sanki by weakness and defeat he won the maiden crown trod all our foes beneath his feet by being trod down and so we've got a wonderful picture of the complete overthrow of our ancient enemy and the robbing of all his power over us uh there are really in this passage uh two things along this line the first is that hayman is made to be the instrument of mordecai's exaltation you know the story we we had a little laugh didn't we at it and rightly so and mordecai and hayman had the terrible humiliation of being the actual one who led the enrobed mordecai through the throne and proclaimed his honor to all men that's the first thing that god's achieved you see there was really in a sense no need for this little bit that hayman could have been hung on his gallows without it but you see well it was sort of what you call poetic justice you know that word poetic justice and i have seen case after case in the scripture that god's judgments are poetic again and again in the prophecies the things that happen to israel they're poetic they exactly balance that which god is judging you see god's an artist oh we know he's an artist in grace but you know god is an artist in judgment an art we've seen it in our own damn generation the artistry of divine judgments on mussolini we needn't go into the story of it how it all happened and their dictators come but god is the dictator of dictators and he knows how to put men down who rise against his son in his own time in his own way the artistry of the judgment of god on hitler and so would it be i will overthrow overthrow overthrow till he come whose right it is to reign and the great greatest act of artistry of god will be the overthrow of the final antichrist it'll be poetic and so it was here and so it is in our redemption satan's been made to be the actual means of the exaltation of the very one who he wanted to humble you turn to philippians 2 you see the exaltation of the lord jesus philippians 2 it's such a well-known passage we won't read all of it it begins in verse 5 the particular section let this mind begin you which was also in christ jesus and then we're given the seven steps down which the son of god took for us from the top throne of glory to that cross on calvary he didn't only become obedient unto death but to a special form of death the death of the cross not the death of the bed not a disgraceful dying on a bed winston churchill will one day die on a bed but jesus died on a cross engineered by satan and a cross was a punishment reserved for criminals just what the devil wanted he is really humbled no you succeeded in accomplishing the death as he thinks of the son of god by the utter humbling of it but look verse 9 wherefore god also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name you know jesus has been exalted to the highest station the universe of all angels demons and men having to bow if not now certainly one day before him but that isn't because he's the son of god nearly wherefore god has highly exalted him because he was humbled so low for that reason god has given him all the greater place in the universe you see it's just a exemplification of that word the lord himself said he that humbleth himself shall be exalted none humbled himself permitted himself to be humbled so low as the lord jesus therefore god gave him an exaltation commensurate with a very humiliation which the devil wrecked upon him and so in a sense haman satan has contributed to the glory of the son of god we worship him as the land those wounds yet visible above in beauty glorified are the theme and the ground of his praise and glory but more important than that just as haman was hanged on his own gallows the same can be said of satan would you like to see the scripture that talks about satan being hanged on his own gallows hebrews chapter 2 and done so by the lord jesus whose death he tried to arrange hebrews 2 14 for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death through a death that satan himself engineered but of course not without god's permission it was designed that through death he might destroy that is bring to nothing him that had the power or the authority of death that is the death he has the authority of death he's the right to see that the wages of sin really are paid out to us in full and not only physical death but every other form of spiritual death that comes he has the authority of death he's got the whole world and he's thought to impose that death on our savior but by doing so he circumvented his own overthrow because the only reason why satan had the authority of death because it was a sin and jesus dealt with his the ground on which he had his power if you want to kill whales you don't go to the tropics you've got to go to the arctic you want to deal with elephants you don't have to go to the the arctic you've got to go to the tropics you've got to deal with a thing on its own ground and say and jesus dealt with satan on the thing which was his ground sin it was unknown to satan he was there made in the eye of a holy god an offering for the sin of the whole world the sacrifice was complete and satan found he'd lost the ground on which he based his empire sin now i want you to look at chapter 7 verse 3 in esther esther's intercession when she at last came to it is in chapter 7 verse 3 if i have found favor in thy side oh king and if it pleased the king let my life be given me at my petition and my people at my request for we we not only them we are sold i and my people to be destroyed i wonder could we think of it this way the lord jesus became our surety by divine appointment he took my sins and my sorrows he made them his very own you might have thought that his personal store of holiness was such as to be able to pay our debt and for him yet to remain enough in undisturbed relationship with his father but our debt was such that it extinguished for the time being his own personal store of merit he died he couldn't sustain the world's sin without bearing the full penalty and so he was identified with us in the deepest way possible my sins became his my place was the place he took do you think he could say to the father so to speak from the cross let my life be given me at my petition and my people at my request i think we can and then what can he ground such a petition if he's taken the sinner's place then he ought to be there forever he's grounding out on the value the infinite value of that eternal precious blood so great that enough for all the sins for which he stood sure and we read in hebrews 13 you can turn to it that god brought him again from the dead house by the blood of the everlasting covenant but for the fact that there was power wonder working power in that blood he would have been there still and we would have been condensed but up from the grave he arose raised by the very power of that precious blood which was enough up he rose and with him all his people god granted him his life and the people and his debt of his people at his request and because he's free i'm free and the scriptures go further it isn't merely jesus dying for us but because of that fact you can count that you have died yourself to sin you can count it as if you finished with the penalty of sin because you've already paid its penalty and there's no more coming to you hmm that's what says in two corinthians five you know that verse we thus judge that if all if one died for all then all died it's as if you actually did die yourself for as if someone pays your bill the creditor doesn't matter mine too much who it is that pays it he writes it down as if you've paid now that is the simple argument of the epistle to the romans chapter six perhaps we return to that i've milled over this chapter for years got a lot of blessing out of it but made it very complicated for myself now verse seven he that is dead is freed from sin again i say what is this freedom from sin which the bible talks about and which the hymns talk about so many of us are trying to read into it it's a place where you don't get temptation and when there's never any fall and where you really begin to sprout wings well my wings have taken an awful long time sprouting and i can't say that i'm free from this sin in that sense can you and what's more this freedom from sin it's mentioned six times in rome three times in romans is put incidentally being made from sin you became service to god and i used to say like feel like saying hey say paul we want a whole chapter on being made free from sin and i've come to see it's much simpler than that it doesn't need a whole chapter indeed it's the subject of the whole epistle to the romans we've made a great mistake by telling ourselves that up to chapter five the subject is justification and six seven and eight is sanctification well if you still think that is right carry on but i used to it but i think i've come to a simpler explanation which has brought peace from the least to my heart being made free if the power of sin is its ability to cleanse to condemn you and to cut you off from god and put you in the dark being free from it is being free from its condemnation free from its reproach free out into the sunlight being made free from sin and that is certainly what the hymn writers spoke about the simple gospel hymn i do believe i will believe that jesus died for me but on the cross he shed his blood from sin to set me free i wasn't free before i'm a dominion i may not have been sitting all back in the present but what about the past they're still there i'm under the minute but jesus died to set me free now how do you get free verse seven says he that is dead is freed from sin for instance uh dr ward was condemned to several years in prison but he's not in prison he's free because he died he that is dead he that's died and i have died to sin now here there's a very important distinction between about being about jesus dying for sin and to sin did you know it says that jesus died to sin what does it mean verse nine knowing that christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him for in which he died he died unto sin not for sin he died to it but in that he liveth he liveth unto god likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin now what does it mean that jesus died unto sin we understand he died for sin why he died to sin in the sense that sin now could no longer condemn him the moment he accepted my sins then he the condemnation that was mine became his but he discharged it through his precious work on calvary that sacrifice with which god was so wealthy no more can he condemn that if this world went on for a million more years which it is not going to don't you think it and if vast multitudes of sinners came into the world jesus would never have to repeat count that count sacrifice is enough for all he could never be condemned again for the sins that he took his death discharged he's rose from he's risen from the dead knowing that christ being raised from the dead dies no more death hath no more dominion over him for the thing that would have given death dominion over him has been finally discharged to the satisfaction of god he's dead to it and i says you're too you are as dead to sins guilt as jesus is or can be if you'll only be honest enough to spill the beans and tell the whole dirty story and you're as free as jesus is because you're short is free therefore you are that's what is meant by reckoning yourself dead to sin i used to think it was some glorious inner work of grace in fact i'm guilty of even having said if you were past the execution the sense of execution you can trust god to carry on no if you pass the centers of death you can trust god to carry out the execution well the carrying of the out of the executions been taking a long time in my case the old man hasn't isn't extinguished no no it's not dealing with that god has ways and we shall see what progressive holiness is this isn't continually going down into sin this is glorious holiness there's another motive that comes in but it's not the subject here it's the way to get free dare not only to see that jesus died for you for you but he died to all your sins he's free and his freedom is yours because your death was his his liberation from it is yours and will you notice two very interesting verses in chapter 6 verse 9 and verse 14 death have no more dominion over him verse 9 and in verse 14 sin shall not have dominion over you because death has no more dominion over him sin has no more dominion over me because he's free i can be free from its dominion i needn't be under the dominion of sin for any longer than it takes me to face up to where i've got and go to jesus oh there's so much more but we'll stop there just let me close once again with quoting that wonderful hymn of charles wesley the reign of sin and death is all and all may live from sin set free satan has lost his mortal power it is swallowed up in victory thank god there's power one the working power in the blood of the lamb and you'd be in the sunlight today if satan comes along and does something else begins to condemn you you know where to go the devil says i can't get that man down for any longer than it takes him to go to calvary he intends you to be down for a week but you turn quickly yes lord you're right i'm wrong and you were as free as the precious blood of jesus he says oh you want to die i've done it already i am dead but you say is there not here a bit of satisfaction of course there is because you are judicially dead you are to act as if you were morally so you're not to play and indulge in things which occasion the death of satan of god and there's all the most powerful motives in the heart in the world to turn you away from it not the motive of duty not the motive of some extraordinary once-for-all experience but the motive of love for a savior the motive of the one who says i am not worthy the least to dismay but jesus left heaven for me oh my friend love seeing grace more is the thing that makes a man hates him i'm not going to touch that to which i'm dead let's pray