Jesus: The Divine Mission of Redemption and Revelation

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Jesus came to save sinners, and because this was his purpose, he spent time with them, and he spent time with them to the disgust of the religious establishment. Despite the fact that we have made of Jesus a kind of transcendent blond-haired blue-eyed nicely dressed sort of individual of our own creation, the projection of our own minds. [00:04:58]

Jesus came to address the fundamental human problem, which is sin, and he came in himself by his death to provide the only cure. Now at that point, you see, we have major disagreement, and it is at that point that we need to be most courteous, most kind, most careful, or we lose in that conversation. [00:09:26]

We need to explain to people that what the Bible says is that we are sinners. We sin because we are sinners. We are not sinners because we sin. That's a question in a theological paper: are we sinners because we sin, or do we sin because we're sinners? What is biblical orthodoxy? [00:09:56]

The issue this morning, as we're told by our world, is not that a man is bad; it is just that he's not as good as he should be, that his problem is that he's ignorant. He's not sinful; it's just that he doesn't know. He doesn't know about the beautiful and about the pure and about the good. [00:13:06]

The culture in which we live has no possibility of coming to Christ as a savior, for it is unprepared to admit the predicament of sin. And until a person understands sin, why in the wide world would you want a savior? So we need to labor to point out to people that if they're prepared to be sensible. [00:14:10]

We want to put it to them that the Bible gives as good an explanation as any that I've heard in a long time. And we can start just from there. Don't you think that it's fairly reasonable to suggest that the reason we are the way we are on the outside is because of a problem that we have on the inside? [00:14:41]

Jesus came to fulfill the Father's purpose. He came to reveal the Father. He came to die, and he came in order that we, in recognizing his death, may find life. The interesting thing is that in Mark 8:31, we read, "For this very reason I came to this hour." Actually, that is John chapter 12. [00:16:34]

Until we realize that Jesus on the cross was bearing sin, was taking our place, was suffering the punishment that was to us because we are cheats and thieves and because we have dirty minds and because we go our own way, that Jesus in the cross was doing all of that, we never understood the Christmas story. [00:18:17]

Is it sufficient to believe just the way the demons believe, simply to intellectually acknowledge it? Absolutely not. So is there another step, the vital step? Alexander Fleming, a Scotsman, discovered penicillin. It was first used in Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. It radically changed for all time the issue of blood poisoning. [00:19:59]

I do believe that regularly I am addressing a group of people who will die in their sins at arm's length to the cure because you have never ever personally come to accept Jesus Christ and his offer of salvation. Some years ago in Edinburgh, when I was there as an assistant minister, a 69-year-old woman from the Grassmarket. [00:21:32]

The magistrate looked at her and he said, in order that justice must be done, I have to fine you the statutory fine. The lady, of course, was penniless, and offering this information, which was no surprise to the magistrate, she then became the recipient of the news that in the absence of the finance, she must spend the time in the cells. [00:21:59]

In a far more wonderful way, Christ in his coming and in his death has paid our fine and made possible our release. Dear ones, why would you ever want to stay in bondage with such an offer of release? [00:22:57]

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