Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
Worship call 1111 It is finished - 2024/07/16
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Welcome to Worship Call with Bible teacher Buzz Lawbet. Buzz is the pastor of Grace Chapel Bible Ministries located in Duncan, South Carolina. This ministry is dedicated to the verse by verse teaching of God's word and discipleship programs aimed at strengthening the faith of God's people. Now here's today's message. >> The most critical time in all of human history, the most defining moment was that those three hours, the latter three hours of the six hours that Jesus hung upon the cross. We hear the term or the phrase a matter of life and death and it certainly was a matter of your life and your death or my death. It all depended upon the completed mission of Christ upon the cross. This is the third day of the week in God's created order, the 16th day of the seventh month, 2024th year of our Lord, and this is another fine day in the Lord. Father in Heaven, thank you for this opportunity once again to meet together. We pray Heavenly Father, to open up our hearts to the truth that you have laid out in your word that we might continue to grow and grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let's say with Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. All right, we made it through Monday and here we go on to the Tuesday and we are in John. Let's go to John this morning, John, 1923, John, 1923. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his outer garments and made four parts apart for every soldier and also tunic. Now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots to decide whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture. They divided up their garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots. The Jesus was left naked on the cross, that was the way they were crucified. There was a fall, this fall exposure and Jesus died, shamefully naked. And this reflects going back to Genesis, Genesis chapter three, where it speaks of the nakedness. And then when we really, and I hadn't mentioned too much about this, but when we go back, let's go back to Genesis for a moment and cover a couple of things. Go back to Genesis chapter three and Genesis chapter three, it speaks of the fall. And actually I'll put it up on here for us. I lost it, bring it back. And we'll go back up, you know, I don't know what to say right here, it's seven. Remember in Genesis chapter two, it said that they were both naked and they were not ashamed. Adam and his woman and really I'll take it back to the fact that when it goes back, let me bring it back to there. Yeah, for this reason man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined with his wife and they shall become one flesh and a man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. And this has nothing to do. Well, I don't, I believe we make much to do and all the pictures and everything that we, all the depictions of the Adam and Eve being without clothes running through the woods and the jungle and paradise and whatever that is. But I don't believe this and I believe this bodily and as it depicts here that this is not emphasis upon bodily nakedness. They could have been wearing big leaves, they could have been wearing any other things. But I think this right here wasn't suggesting their physical condition but their spiritual condition. And nakedness reflected that they could stand before God without atonement, without an atonement means covering. That means that they could stand before God because they were perfect. When man became sinners, they lost that perfection and therefore could not stand before God. And they could be right apart from righteousness. Anything that is unrighteous is sinful and is a, I spoke before about divine gag reflexes. It's something that the Lord cannot tolerate. He cannot tolerate sin and so man to continue on man needs atonement. Let's go back down to verse three after the fall. So they could stand before God without atonement. But then we find after the fall, after they took from the tree, we find in verse seven. Then the eyes for both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loin coverings. They sought by their own efforts to fix that which was man's broke that came with sin. And remember what I said before, the principle is that man cannot fix what man broke. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees in the garden. They were sinners, there's no place to hide. And here it was Jesus was exposed. So they're naked, they hid themselves. Jesus here and in contrast is exposed to all. He became sin for us and exposed to the world and to the world and to the cosmic system. Then the Lord God called the man and said, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked." So I hid myself. The man and he said, "Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I command you not to eat?" And the man said, "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me from the tree and I ate." So I'm trying to cast a blame. Not willing at this point, so much reflected on the things that are going on at the cross. The cross was a reversal really of all of this. Jesus, for the joy that was set before him despising the shame, endured the cross. And he was willing to go where the man, where the first Adam, did not. Then the Lord said to the woman, "What is it that you've done?" He said, "The serpent deceived me and I ate." And the Lord God said to the serpent and it goes on. Now he passes the consequences. Not to judgment, judgment is death. The judgment is death, but by the grace of God and the mercy of God, Adam and the woman are not going to physically die. They are spiritually dead at this point. But their physical death will be in the future. But at this point, they are physically dead, but nonetheless there will be consequences for the fall. And I'm going to pass down through that. You can read that when it gets to the man. Then to Adam he said, "Because if you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I've commanded you saying, you shall not take from it, curse it as a ground because of you." In total you will eat of it all the days of your life. But the thorns and thistles, "It shall grow for you." The thorns, and we talked about the thorns, the crown of thorns, that he had to, that Jesus was jammed upon Jesus's head in this mocking of the soldiers, from the soldiers. And you will eat the plants of the field, and the sweat of your face, and there again is a picture of the blood droplets that came down from an anguished Jesus in the garden. And you will eat bread till you return to the ground. And here it is that Jesus is headed to the grave because from it you are taken and from for you are dust, and dust you shall return. And so there is the curse, and there is a consequences, and Jesus suffered all the consequences that man, even more so, of what the Lord had cursed man with. Now the man called his wife and named Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man became one like one of us and cast them out of the garden and closed off the tree of life." Let me read the rest of it. Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, known good and evil. Now he might stretch out his hand, take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eve to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out from the east of the garden of Eden, he stationed in a chair of Eve in a flaming sword which turned in every direction and guarded the way to the tree of life. The answer would not be the answer to life. You see, if everything boils down to the fact that it is not about what I have sinned, that I have sinned, it was not, you see, sin is a product of who we are. We are sinners. As I often said, apple tree produces apples, an orange tree produces orange. A sinful tree produces sin. You will know them by the fruit. And we are. We've all sinned and come from the glory of God. Sin is not the issue, but it's our position. Remember the first question that Jesus, the Lord, I will say pre-incarnate Christ, in the garden asked Adam, he said, "Where are you? Where are you?" That is the most pressing decision. Not what you have done, but where are you? And man and woman. You have taken him from the tree which I have told you not to take from. So our position, when it comes to the salvation message, sin is not the issue, but it's our position. It's where we are in Christ. And whether or not we have a torment, we are all going to stand before we are going to all stand before God. We are going to all stand before the judge. Our judge is the Lord Jesus Christ. For those that die as believers with atonement, they will stand before the great, the judgment seat of Christ to receive the evaluation for what they have done in the body. For those who are, for those who are unbelievers, they will stand before the great white throne judgment. And the verdict will be guilty. They will have no atonement to stand before their judge. And for Adam and his helpless race was giving grace and mercy. And what individuals in that race do with that grace and mercy in the provision of salvation will determine their future destiny. So here it is that Jesus, as Adam was naked in the garden here, without atonement here is Jesus on the cross on the tree. They were cut off from the tree, one tree from the garden, the tree of life. Now Jesus hangs upon another tree and Deuteronomy says, "Pursa is the man who hangs upon the tree." And he has paid for the sins of the world on that cross. So there he is, he's naked before God, and uncovered, unable to thwart the judgment of sin that was placed upon him. And it does reflect the spiritual death of Adam in the garden, but rather than Adam taking those sins in. I thought I was curious that we could have a conversation about how Adam for a time for however long he was innocent, could he have taken the woman's place for punishment? But he said, "Well the woman she sinned, she has fallen, and I haven't, and I love her so much. Let me take her sin." That's another story altogether. So body nakedness after the fall represents spiritual condition of man. It's Adam and his wife who stood body naked, and that which from the start, from the start they needed no atonement, but after the fall they did. So, but now Adam, the last Adam he receives what the first Adam should have received, and that is judgment for sin. So spiritually speaking Christ was stripped completely naked. We saw that a guard stripped him naked, split up his garments, gambled over him, and leaving Jesus completely naked hanging upon the cross, fully exposed. But John goes on, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Popas and Mary Magdalene, four women. In contrast to the Mothors, in contrast to those who hated Jesus, they were at the foot of the cross mourning, they never loved it. You remember one thing that Mary, when Jesus was a baby and she was taking the Jesus into the temple for dedication, and she runs into two different people. Just a question, who did Mary run into? When Mary Joseph took Jesus to the temple, who were the two individuals? Name of the two individuals that they encountered at the temple, you remember? Simeon was a man who longed to see his Redeemer before he died, and he was filled with the spirit, but was guided into the temple, and he got to hold the baby. So here in Luke 234, Simeon gives a prophecy to Mary, and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, "Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed, and a sword will pierce even your own soul." To the end, the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. So you think at this point, Mary would understand fully what this, sometimes prophecies are not fully understood until they unfold, and certainly Mary should not understand now what he was talking about. John 19, 26, and when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son." And he said to his disciple, "Behold, your mother from that hour that the disciple took her into his household." His disciple, of course, is John himself, who doesn't name himself in his writings. And they're a little thinking about this, and the woman, remember in the ancient world, they recognize the vulnerability. And this may also go all the way back to the garden himself, the vulnerability of the woman. The woman was designed to be under an authority. An authority is not a bad thing. An authority structure provides an environment, an umbrella of protection. In a marriage to a husband, the spiritual leader, the man who was created first, under the authority within that marriage, it provides a protection for the wife. And we live in a time that should tell us that we live what happened in our culture now. And the strong man has been bound. And the strong man is the man of the house. The men have been demasculized. They've been attacked, they have been torn down, and our society, for the most part, is manless. So therefore, it allows the demonic realm to flood in. The man is the head of the marriage within the marriage. It's also the head of the family, the spiritual leader of that family. In the ancient world, they understood this. When a woman became a widow, what she would do is she would go back to live with her parents under that authority. Paul talks about, this is about to talk about women having their heads covered. This is what, and I believe it's 1 Corinthians, this is what Paul was talking about. So if she would go back as a widow, she would go back to her parents. Or she would be taken in by a family. And here it is. One woman that would be attacked by the unseen realm would be married, the mother of Jesus. The main focal point was to attack Jesus. The next focal point would be the attacking of the disciples, which will happen. And the attacking of the mother. The mother doesn't need attacking, so what Jesus does is he places her under the authority of John's household. And then he said to him, John, behold your mother, he takes an end so it becomes his responsibility and she goes under the authority of his household for divine protection. Joseph, her husband, seems to be long gone at this point. I'm sure he is. The disciples will be scattered. And the siblings at this point would be unbelievers. And James later on will become a believer, but right now they are unbelievers. And John, 1928, after this, Jesus knowing that all things had already been accomplished to fulfill the scripture, said, I am thirsty. This is going to be the last act. The filing act, the marking act, they would give him sour wine. But here it is that he says I'm thirsty. He is the one who told the woman at the well that takes from this, the water, that I am living water, that anybody who takes from this water will never thirst again. And Jesus gave it all. He says he's thirsty. The one who provided the water was himself thirsty, was himself parched. And we just read this in Psalm 22, 15 yesterday, my strength is dried up like a posher. My tongue pleads to my jaw, and you lay me in the dust of the earth. And John, 1929, says a jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of sour wine upon the branch of hissep and brought it up to his mouth. Again, this would be the last insult. Man would offer a dying Jesus bitter wine rather than a cool taste of fresh water. A denial of one of any comfort. Remember that, remember the rich man who went to Hades as Jesus spoke of. And he looked over to chasm and he pleaded for Abraham to put just a drop, or to send Lazarus over to put just a drop of water. He didn't ask for wine of any kind. He asked just for a cool, fresh drop of water to be placed upon his tongue. And Jesus had experienced that which that rich man was in. And he had, and rather than a taste of a cool, clear taste of water, they put up sour wine. And you see, and this is a reflection, and the fact is, remember this, that the world cannot offer. The world you see while Jesus is offering living water, cool, and fresh, and off, Jesus offers that. The world cannot offer Jesus anything, except bitter sin. And what Jesus said, and it's kind of like the trade-off right here, is that while he takes the bitter, the bitterness of this world, tases the bitterness of this world, remember Hebrew says that he's tasted death for us all, and that bitter wine. It's also in contrast to Canaan. Remember Canaan was the best wine when Jesus turned the water into wine. And we look forward to sappling some of that wine and drinking some of that wine when we get to the marriage supper of the lamb. But at this point, the world cannot offer the perfection that Christ can offer us. They offer him nothing but bitterness. This world has nothing to offer but bitterness. But it was the one who hung upon the cross that offered the water, the living water. And we can't satisfy him, but he can satisfy us, and he gives to us the living water. He gives to us the means by which he can look upon us, his very own righteousness. Then John 1930. Therefore, when Jesus had received a sarah wine, he said, "It is finished." And this word "It is finished right here" is "Tetalestai." To bring an activity to a successful finish, to complete, to finish, to end, to accomplish. And Telestai is a, it means here that the work of salvation is complete. You see, when Adam sinned against, when Adam sinned, he was corporate head of the human race, when Adam sinned, death and sin passed on to all men. And as progenies of Adam, we enter into this world. Again, physically alive, but spiritually dead, no relationship with him. This world is universal. You see, we didn't become lost when we committed our first sin. We became lost when we were born into this world. And this world is universally lost. And where there is perfect justice, there has to be consequences for sin, for breaking of the law. Where there is no consequences, it's called injustice. Imagine going to a court and you're sitting there as a lone survivor of your family. Somebody just came in and killed all your family. And the judge says, "You know what? I know he's telling the killer and they know all the evidences against him. He admitted to the crime and everything. And this guy deserves capital punishment to be taken in and executed. But the judge says, "You know what? I'm a good judge and I'm just having a good day and I know you probably didn't mean it and I know man is inherently good. So I'm just going to let you off the hook. I'm going to drop all charges and because I'm such a good judge. Is he really a good judge? Is he going to let him off the hook for the crimes that he committed? You see, perfect justice demands retribution for crimes committed. And so God could not just let the human race off the hook. And so God demands it. We also take it back to remember, you know, the story of the dueling days, you know, and stuff. And a gentleman would insult the other gentleman. And he goes, "I demand satisfaction. I demand satisfaction. This demands an answer. I can't let this go. He slaps them in the face and have a duel with swords or guns at 10 pace or whatever it is." But God would sin, a righteous God, a just God demands satisfaction. And so it was Jesus who would take that sin for the human race. He paid for every sin. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever trusts in him, whoever is trusting in him, shall not perish but have eternal life. He opens the door that God can forgive man. He can forgive the one who is believing in him without violating his perfect justice because those sins were put upon Jesus upon the cross and he paid for them. It is finished, is a legal or a financial term. It's when a debt, when a certificate of debt, somebody owing another, when that debt is paid, it is stamped to less die. It's finished. It's complete. It's paid in full. And this has ramifications, not only for our salvation from the star, that Jesus, that by believing and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life, we shall have eternal life. But it also goes on beyond the cross, that 1 John 1 and 9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness. He's faithful and just meaning that he doesn't just arbitrarily forgive us when we confess our sins and restore us back into fellowship. But he's just because those sins were paid for upon the cross and Satan cannot accuse us and cause judgment to come upon us because our sin debt has already been wiped up. Glory to God. So this, to less die, it is finished. Work of salvation is complete. And so with that, we'll pick up with this tomorrow as we continue Lord Williamsburg's guidance if we will pick this up in the AM. Let's close out for our Father and have a thank you for this opportunity. Fellowshiping in the Word this morning, we pray Heavenly Father that God, Holy Spirit, continue to open our hearts to these truths. May these truths be that which we live by, day by day. May we remember we just recently had our communion. May we continue to remember that our eternal lives are bought with a price and that our lives should be lived. In such a way that is worthy of our calling and for the price it was that was paid that we might have eternal life. We thank Heavenly Father for your grace, your mercy and kindness, and Christ's name will pray. Amen. All right. Another fine day in the Lord. We have our Tuesday night Bible class tonight. Hope you're with us. But until then, stay motivated Lord, keep your armor on, keep fighting a good fight of faith. Lord, will and Spirit, God, wrap your pen. We'll be back here this evening and tomorrow morning. [silence] [silence]