In this message we walk through the cross, its ramifications on the plan of salvation and the process of justification.

<p>In this message we walk through the cross, its ramifications on the plan of salvation and the process of justification.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Benton Community Church of Seventh-day Adventists

What is Righteousness by Faith?

Dee Casper

What Was Accomplished at the Cross?

God in heaven, thank you for this privilege to come into your presence in prayer.

And I just ask now that what the people are needing today, Lord, I freely confess, I don't have.

And so I pray that your spirit would be present in a powerful way.

You would open our eyes to the beauty of the cross and what it means to us individually.

And as we go through the course of this day, may we be more affirmed that indeed the message of Christ our righteousness is meet in due season in the third angel's message in verity and that it is what will prepare a people to stand in the day of God.

Bless us, O God, I pray, and show us your glory.

So we're embarking upon a three-part journey.

For those who aren't aware, well, first of all, the message is going to be what was accomplished at the cross and a thank you is in order.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

It's a media ministry in southern Illinois and formerly was a Tennessee boy for about 3 years and miss it.

Miss it so much I talked my mom into moving not too far from here so I have more reasons to visit.

Unseen Media Group you can find more about our ministry on our website here, unseen.me.

We're a media ministry creating content to reach young people with the gospel.

Right now, this afternoon at 2.30, and another at 3.45.

This afternoon at 2.30 will be on the Law and the Covenants, and the message at 3.45 will be how to have assurance of salvation.

We're basically walking through 3 phases of the plan of salvation, justification, sanctification, and what leads to glorification.

We're going to cover the ministry of the Holy Spirit and how to be able to stand at the end of time.

So, I'm going to go ahead and get started.

Again, this morning's message is entitled, What Was Accomplished at the Cross.

There's some very helpful documents I'd like to share with you before we begin.

If you just want to take down the references for these, the first is the Signs of the Times, December 30, 1889, And the second is from the 1888 materials, chapter 87, pages 695 to 696.

Phenomenal article, the 1 in the signs of the times.

Just ridiculously good on what was accomplished by the death of Jesus.

All right, so 2 prefaces to this morning's message.

The first is this, that my remote isn't working as well as my iPad, so I'm going to ignore it.

Okay, The first quote is found here from 1888 materials.

It was very helpful for me to kind of understand what the focal lens need to be of what we preach.

Some people fear that, you know, if we start preaching more about Jesus, we're going to abandon our core truths that make us peculiar.

I don't think this is an either-or thing.

I don't think it was ever intended to be.

I believe that we should not run from our peculiarity.

We have a beautiful message that's centered in the sanctuary, and all of this can still be Christ-centered.

You don't have to abandon 1 to uplift the other, amen?

You can preach present truth while talking about the loveliness of Jesus.

And that's my burden today, but something that's helped me to see that is what's in this quote here in 1888 materials, page 842 and then 842, or 844 to 855.

Says, the preaching of Christ crucified has been strangely neglected by our people.

Many who claim to believe the truth have no knowledge of faith in Christ by experience.

They continue, I'm having technological difficulties at infinitum here.

Such as can be only found, actually go back, because it's skipping on me now.

It is this neglected part of the ministry which will be found the great instrument in the conversion of souls and in leading to the high standard of holiness which every church needs in order to become a living church.

The first is that this is going to lead to the conversion of souls, the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.

And as mission-minded Seventh-day Adventist Christians, are we looking for the conversion of souls?

All right, well, this can help with that.

Here's the second 1, that it also will lead to the high standard of holiness which every church needs in order to become a living church.

Some of you may have attended churches that you would deem as being dead.

There's not a lot of life there, not a lot of growth evangelistically, not a lot of friendliness amongst the brethren maybe, yeah?

We're told here that the cross actually leads to a high standard of holiness to make it a living church.

And how many people have ever heard someone say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we already know the gospel, everybody knows that.

What we need to do is give them the meat.

The problem with that is that it's not biblical.

Like the cross is called meat in due season, we're told, in the spirit of prophecy, first of all.

And second of all, it's the preaching of Christ crucified because the same company would say, and they're rightly frustrated, that it seems that the church has lost its zeal for holiness.

But the answer, we're told, is actually found in the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.

She says this will lead to the high standards of holiness, which every church needs in order to become a living church.

So, removing Christ-centered, cross-centered, continual preaching in our churches won't actually lead to holiness.

It's going to lead to discouragement or legalism, most likely.

If you preach Christ with the standards, it's achievable, it's attainable, it's attractive, it's possible, and it's powerful.

She says, She says, There must be a life-giving power in the ministry.

Life must be infused into the missionaries in every place, that they may go forth giving the trumpet no uncertain sound, but with heaven-sent awakening power.

Such as can be found only in the preaching of Jesus Christ, His love, His forgiveness, His grace.

Beautiful, so this is kind of why I've been more convicted as of late to have this central focus.

She says, the want, which is what's lacking, and the desire, the want in the religious experience, is the acceptance of Jesus Christ as presented in the gospel.

What most people are missing in the religious experience is this understanding.

We're gonna be unpacking this throughout the course of this day, but I'd like to begin with the sobering story.

So I was teaching at a school of evangelism a few years ago and I was asked to come as an adjunct instructor teaching on Christian service.

Someone else is preaching in the afternoon on the cross.

So as this person begins a story, they didn't grow up a Christian, became a Christian later in life, in their late teens, I think, but they they were knocking on doors after their conversion, kind of this radical conversion experience.

They were knocking on doors, and they get to this guy's house, and I forget if they were just distributing literature or selling literature.

I don't remember which, but that's not really the point.

So he gets to this door and he says, hey, I've got this book for you, man.

So he comes inside and he says, have a seat.

Actually, I think he's still standing, but he says, what's the deal, man?

He says, hey, I've got this book and it talks about the fact that Jesus died for you.

The Grace of Christ and the New Covenant

Father in heaven, I just thank you for the beauty of the gospel.

And I just pray as we look into the new covenant today that you would bless us with your presence, with a clearer understanding of what sanctification looks like now that we've covered justification, and that this would prepare the ground for what glorification will look like in our last meeting.

Just bless us abundantly and show us your glory, I pray.

We're going to have a Bible study this afternoon.

It's lawful to do good on the Sabbath, I hear.

So whip out there Bibles and turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 31.

We're going to have the Old Covenant defined and introduced, and I would say introduced, and we'll go from there.

If you want to know where to find the new covenant, it's actually found in the Old Testament.

We are Old Testament and New Testament Christians, and that's okay.

We believe in the whole Bible, not just the New Testament.

So in Jeremiah chapter 31, beginning in verse 31, this is what God says.

He says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make what type of covenant?

With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke though I was a husband to them, says the Lord." So There's a problem right away, he says, with the old covenant.

And he says, it was my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them.

Let's define the old covenant in Exodus chapter 19, and then we'll come back.

Exodus chapter 19, and again, for those studious note-takers, these slides will be available after the fact.

If you just want to sit back and enjoy the ride, you're welcome to.

If it helps you to remember better, then go for it.

But I also will try to be a good steward of our time.

So, And Moses went up to God, verse 3 of Exodus 19, and the Lord called to him from the mountains, saying, Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself." This is endearing language here.

"'Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel." Verse 7, So Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before them all these words which the Lord commanded him.

Then all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do.

So Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.

God says, Here's what I want for the people.

Tell the Lord all that you said, we will do.

This is now after the 10 Commandments are given.

So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments, and all the people answered with 1 voice and said, All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do." Sound familiar?

Then he, Moses, took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people, and they said, all that the Lord has spoken we will do and be obedient." 3 times, once in Exodus 19, twice in Exodus 24, God gives the requirements He has for them and they say, no problem, we can do it, all that the Lord has said we will do.

This is why Moses, when he comes down from the mountain, and Hollywood does this to us.

Every time I read this text I see Charlton Heston.

And he comes down from the mountain with his big gnarly beard.

There's a movie called The 10 Commandments that came out like 30 years ago, and the guy who played Moses in the movie was Charlton Heston.

He had this big, gnarly beard, and he comes down from the mountain, throws the 10 Commandments on the ground and breaks them.

Because he was signifying what the people had just done, and how they had just broken the commandments of God.

So How do we know that the 10 Commandments are the covenant?

Go to Deuteronomy chapter 4, this is a very quick reference, quick hit it and get it and leave.

Deuteronomy 4 verse 11 to 13, just for any doubts that anyone may have.

This is Moses recounting to the people the encounter they had with God at Mount Sinai.

Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, chapter 4, verse 11.

Deuteronomy 4, verse 11 says, "'Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.

And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire.

You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form.

So he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform.

And what is that covenant according to Moses, what he says right now?

So it should be abundantly clear that the covenant was the 10 Commandments and the people 3 times said we will do it we will do it we will do it the problem is they didn't okay and we'll unpack that now go to Jeremiah 31 in fact they were so freaked out by God talking he literally told Moses look you talk to him let him kill you but we're done like we were terrified you speak to him whatever he says we'll do it just tell him to be quiet right The people are just terrified at this stage.

Because they had a very unhealthy view of God.

They had an appeasement-based theology that was still in their bloodstream from Egypt.

And if the gods are angry, you make more agreements, right?

You do what they say to get them to chill out because they're freaking us out right now.

They had a misunderstanding of the true character of God who saw them as His spouse.

Hosea picks up on this and says, no longer will I call you my master, I'll now call you my husband, meaning how we should view God in that sense.

Not that we don't obey God, but just there's this endearing relational matrimonial language employed as opposed to just servitude.

Now that we have some context, let's reread Jeremiah 31.

Beginning in verse 31, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.

Is it the terms of the covenant or is it the people who made the agreement?

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will, so no longer we will, I will put my law on their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more." This sounds too good to be true.

The Answer to Our Deficiencies

Sweet Jesus, again, thank you for this privilege to pray.

Thank you for the privilege of fellowship and the time to study your word.

I thank you that you want us to be saved more than we desire to be saved and are doing whatever it takes to make that a reality apart from crossing the threshold of our will.

So I just pray that you would inform our wills again today to ensure that we will choose rightly and that we will choose a path of surrender and dependence in our experience.

I stole it from the Internet, but it looks cool.

All right, we as believers wrestle with deficiencies.

And we wrestle with inadequacies, and both of these can cripple us and make us feel unworthy of being saved.

We're not good enough, we're broken, we're a mess.

And I believe the ministry of the Holy Spirit will give us some answers.

Paul says in Romans 7, for I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells.

For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.

That's the believer's experience for many, right?

And when I tried to do the right thing, I failed.

Who and he says, Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

And someone may be thinking like, That's what I said in my prayer last night.

No, Paul was very acquainted with our experience, Romans 7, 18 and 24.

The answer to Paul's question, I believe, is explained in Romans chapter 8.

And I believe a lot of controversy in the church and a lot of discouragement in our members could be settled with an understanding of the Bible's teaching on the ministry of the Holy Spirit laid out in Romans 8 and elsewhere.

So that's what we're going to be doing this evening, not this morning.

Okay, first of all, there's Some current debate happening in the church regarding the nature of the Holy Spirit, I say currently, Uriah Smith never really accepted the Holy Spirit as being a person, so it's not a new thing necessarily, but it's kind of coming back that there are people who are actually doubting the validity of the Trinity.

And not just in an anti-Trinitarian sense, it's actually a different species, because they're not saying that Jesus isn't God, they're saying that Jesus is God, but had a beginning.

Yeah, he's begotten, which actually means the unique, not necessarily only something that was created.

It's a whole other story, I'm not gonna go into that, I don't have time for that.

But I will say this, Jesus, and they also say that the Holy Spirit is not a person, to my best understanding of what they believe, and that the comforter is actually Jesus Himself.

Here's the thing, Jesus in all 4 of these references refers to the Holy Spirit as a person.

Here's why this matters, by the way, and here's a really good response to some of what's going on with this situation.

The Gospel of John was the last book written in the Bible, not Revelation, it was the Gospel of John.

Chronologically, it was the last 1 that was written.

There were some heresies beginning to come into the church and some rumors happening that some people were denying that Jesus was actually human, that He was just a divine being that came along and did His thing and wasn't really affected by human things.

Others were denying the divinity of Jesus.

Some issues were going on regarding the nature of Christ, His actual, divine, not divine.

Some of these things were starting to happen, and John is looking, he's the last living apostle at this stage, when he dies, no 1 will be alive who knew Jesus personally.

This is a problem, because now everything that people are gonna believe about Jesus is based upon not people who knew Jesus directly, but people who knew Jesus who knew Jesus directly.

And it kind of goes along, kind of like the telephone game, right?

So John is looking at the landscape, he's looking at what has been written to the church at this stage, and he knows all of what's been available to the church when it comes to the writings of the New Testament.

And John ends up including things in his gospel and makes some pretty strong emphases.

So He makes an emphasis on some topics to kind of shore up what's missing in the Christian literature at this stage.

And he ends up including a very long dialogue, nearly an uninterrupted monologue by Jesus.

It's in John chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

This narrative you don't find anywhere else.

Now I, according to my studies, believe that a lot of these things are alluded to in Ephesians, but they're not explicitly quoted.

And John, having access to Ephesians, John being the pastor of Ephesus, actually, at 1 stage when he got off the island of Patmos, I believe that he included this because there's a whole lot of stuff in John 13 through 17 about the love of God, about the Holy Spirit being a person, the personhood of the Holy Spirit, And his whole gospel basically is about the divinity of Jesus, that Jesus is indeed divine, Jesus is the powerful creator, and that the Holy Spirit is a person, and he highlights the love of God.

So he's supplying what he may feel to be lacking to some degree in the literature to ensure that what the next generation of Christians need to know, they will know.

In the beginning, not the beginning of the world, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Everything that was created according to John in his recollection of what went on and he was close to Jesus was made by Jesus.

Well if Jesus was made, did Jesus make Jesus?

And he was in the beginning with the Father.

And just look throughout the Gospel of John, I think there's a lot of cues there that was intentionally given to the church for time such as this.

Anyway, that's not part of this message necessarily, but that is going on.

The Theological Seminary just released a series of videos.

If you message me on Facebook or email me, and Pastor Joe has my email, they just released a series of videos buttressing our view of the Trinity from a bunch of different professors at seminary that is actually a good resource.

And Ministry Magazine just released an article on what Ellen White believed about the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

So our church is starting to release resources to fill this in.

I think Norma McNulty may have dealt with this in AudioVerse.

I know another series in AudioVerse was released.

So no, it's a guy from Australia, I think, that did some presentations.

Anyway, talk to me afterwards, I'll send you some more resources.

Series

What is Righteousness by Faith?

What Was Accomplished at the Cross?

Transcript

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