Institution of the Lord’s Supper

We've come to Mark chapter fourteen, and in March chapter fourteen, we've reached verse twenty two. Here in this section where Jesus is spending this evening, this passover evening with his disciples, and here in verse twenty two it says we're gonna look at verse twenty two through twenty five. We need to also in compass verse twenty six in the here, and you'll see why as we go along. But read with me here in March chapter fourteen, beginning verse twenty two, and again reading from the English Standard version. And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to them and said, take this is my body. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, this is my blood of the Covenant, which has poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God verse twenty six. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. The title of our message this morning is Salvation at the crossroads, Salvation at the crossroads. There is a crossroads here, and there are at least four meetings that happen here at the crossroads, at the crossroads here in Jerusalem, two meals meet at the crossroads here in Jerusalem, two lambs meet at the crossroads here in Jerusalem, to atoms meet, and finally, at the crossroads here in Jerusalem, two covenants meet. And we see them all gathered together juxtaposed here in Mark chapter fourteen, verses twenty two through twenty six, and here we see Salvation at the crossroads. Brigid and I had the privilege of attending a pastor's conference this weekend in Miami, the Miami Pastor's Conference, and it was unbelievable. Was the first time that we ever got to just go to a pastor's conference and receive and not have to do anything, and it was incredible. And the theme of that pastor's conference was what is the Gospel? And we got to hear individuals like Ken Jones and Michael Horton and others preach and address this theme of what is the Gospel? And you may hear that and say, well, wow, why would that be the theme isn't isn't that easy? Don't we all know that? Don't we all understand that nothing could be further from the truth. We don't understand the Gospel in our day. We don't understand the gospel in our culture. We do not understand salvage in our day and in our culture. Far from it. If there is anything that we need to be concentrating on today, it is that question, what is the gospel? What is salvation? Because the fact of the matter is, we live in an age, We live in a time, and we live in a culture where I would argue that the overwhelming majority of people who will look you in the eye and swear to God that they are going to heaven are absolutely not. Those who would look you in the eye and swear that they've been born again, that they are regenerate people, that they are children of God, are absolutely not. Are they convinced, Yes, they're convinced, Yes, they're convinced. Are they sincere, Yes, they are absolutely sincere. They are sincere, and they are convinced. But sincere about what? Convinced about? What? That's the question we have seen in our time, in our day, and in our age and erosion of the Gospel, but more specifically, we've seen an erosion of theology in general. This message this morning will be a little bit different. There's some things that I want to read for you this morning. You know, I usually don't bring a lot of notes up here. Certainly don't ever bring books up here with me. You don't bring any notes at all, or any books at all up here with me. But I want you to hear some things this morning. I want you to see the difference in some things this morning. I want you to get a flavor and a taste of what I'm talking about this morning as it relates to the decline of theology. There's a book that you just need to be familiar with. It's called No Place for Truth or whatever happened to Evangelical Theology. It's by David Wells. David Walls as a professor of systematic theology at Gordon Conwell and basically he's making an argument here that as a professor of systematic theology, he has seen a decline in interest in theology in general. I saw this in my days in seminary when nobody wanted to take theology. Everybody wanted the practical stuff. Who are the most popular professors in the seminary, While they were the preaching professors and the evangelism professors and the missions professors who taught church growth, those were the popular guys. Because what did everybody want? Everybody wanted to learn how to preach to draw a crowd, everybody wanted to learn how to do evangelism to get people to pray the prayer, and everybody wanted to learn how to plant and grow a church. Nobody was interested in theology. Wells talks about this, and here even in his introduction, listen to what he says many taking the plunge, that is taking his theology course, And he talks about the fact that most of the guys leave it until last. They take everything else. And when you got nothing else that you got to take, then you go ahead and you take your theology classes. You suck it up, you know, swallow real hard, and just get out and have it done, says Many who take the plunge seemed to imagine that they are simple following a path to success. But the effects of this great change in the evangelical soul are evident in every incoming class and the seminaries and most publications, and the great majority of churches and in most of their pastors. It is a change so large and so encompassing that those who dissent from what is happening are easily dismissed as individuals who cannot get along, who want to scruple over what is inconsequential, who are not loyal, and who are in any case quite irrelevant. Despite this, the changes that are now afoot are so pregnant with consequences that it becomes for me a matter of conscience to address them. We are in trouble because of a lack of theology, because of a lack of doctrine. And here's a seminary professor who teaches systematic theology who says, the guys who are graduating from our seminaries have been co opted. They don't get it, and they don't want to, and unfortunately they don't have to. You sit in front of a church and are interviewed as a potential pastor. The last thing you have to worry about is being quizzed on your theology. Amen. That's the last thing you have to worry about. You do not have to worry about hearing words like Superlapsyrian or Infralapsarian. You do not have to worry about hearing words like Augustinian or Calvinistic in your soulteriology, or our Manian in your soultereiology, or Amoraldian in your soulteriology. You don't have to worry about things like that. Why Because here's what everybody agrees on. Doctrine divides. Theology is boring, it is unnecessary. Let's just love Jesus and love people. Just go anywhere and that's what you'll hear. Just ride up and down the streets, Just go visit a few places, that's what you'll hear. Just love Jesus, love people. Why do we worry about all of these little insignificant things. Really me ask you a question. Even if we decide that we just need to love Jesus and love people, here are a few questions. Number One, how do you determine that that is of utmost importance without theologizing about it? Secondly, how do you determine who Jesus is apart from theology. How do you determine what an appropriate love of Jesus is apart from theology. How do you determine which people you should love and how you should love those people apart from theology. So even if you want to argue that we ought to just love Jesus and love people, there are five or six theological questions that you've just assumed and jumped over in order to get there. What's the result of this? The result of this non theological or anti theological push is quite simply this are people perishing for lack of knowledge. We don't know. We don't know what the gospel is. We don't know what salvation is. We haven't a clue, and as a result, the church has turned the corner and we have seen in our day dangerous developments. Listen to this. Michael Horden, in his book Putting Amazing Back in Grace says, this grace is the Gospel. The extent to which we are unclear about who does what in salvation is the degree to which we will obscure the gospel. Who does what in salvation? Are you saved? Are you really saved? Are you truly saved? Many of the questions that we deal with are the result of people not knowing what salvation is. For example, no matter where I go, when we have you know question and answer period. College campus is notorious for this question and answer periods on college campuses. Everybody wants to ask certain questions. And one of the questions that people want to ask is about this issue of people falling away. And if a person comes to Christ, if a person asks Jesus into their heart, if a person receives Jesus as Savior and Lord. If a person if they do that and then later on in life they go on a killing spree or on a rampage, what say you about that person? Now, what they think they're asking is a question about eternal security. But that's not the question at all. And I don't even go to the answer of that question. Here's where I start when people ask me that, I start with, whoever told you that salvation was about Jesus being asked or invited into your heart? Find me one place in the Bible where anybody invited Jesus into their heart. Find me one place in the Bible where the apostles admonished anyone to invite Jesus in to their heart. It doesn't exist. That is not biblical salvation. That's the pollution that we've gotten from the force spiritual laws. Yes, I said that yes, I said it out loud. It's a dilution and pollution of the Gospel. What do we have, for example, in the for spiritual laws. Listen to the last one, the for spiritual laws. You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. And then they say, you know, prayers just talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as he is with the attitude of your heart. The following is a suggested prayer. Now, by the way, this is right after they rip Revelation three twenty kicking and screaming out of context. You know, Revelation three twenty. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and I will dine with him, and he with me. Revelation three t is written to the church at Ladesia, not to lost people. It was never intended to be a salvation verse. That is an abusive scripture. It is an absolute abuse and misuse of scripture. When we use Revelation three twenty and tell an unbeliever that Jesus is knocking at the door of their heart, it is not so. And right after the force spiritual laws abuses that verse of scripture. Here's what they tell people. You pray this prayer. Well, Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive you as my savior. And Lord, thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be. Then they say, does this prayer express the desire of your heart? If it does, I invite you to pray this prayer right now, and Christ will come into your life as he promised. Listen, you could pray that prayer one hundred times and mean it and go straight to hell you die. It's not a biblical prayer. It's not a biblical view of salvation. It's not it's the norm. And a lot of you are very uncomfortable right now because I'm messing with your salvation experience. Because for most of us, if somebody asks us, if we're a Christian, what do we go to Yes, I ask Jesus into my heart. Yes, I invited Jesus into my life. Why, Because that's how we've been taught to define salvation in a culture that has run away from theology. So back on that college campus, when that person says, I know people who've asked Jesus into their heart and now they live like the devil, how do you explain that. Here's how I explain that they're lost and unconverted. Yes, but they pray the prayer I don't care One John two nineteen. They went out from among us because they they were never of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained, but they went out so that it would be shown that they are not all of us. One of the evidences of salvation is you endure to the end. You don't endure. You were never in the camp. That's biblical salvation. That's not modern American easy believism. That's not your best life. Now, that's not purpose driven life. But it is Bible. And unfortunately there's a huge difference between the two. So we don't understand salvation, we don't understand the Gospel. And you've got people, I mean, they will come to blows over this. So you got relatives like this, you finally got saved for real, truly converted, and all you wanted to do was tell them about coming to this true conversion experience, and all they heard was, you're judging me. You don't know my heart. God knows my heart. Huh. Let me see. So what you're telling me is that you have had an experience that has changed the core of your being, but God's not powerful enough to work it to the outside. You can have that God all day, every day, and twice on Sundays, I don't want him because he's not the God of the Bible. That is not salvation. And so we pollute the Gospel and pollute salvation, and then this works out to a broader sense. Listen to this on mass marketing of the Gospel. Listen to this from George Barnet in his book Marketing the Church. It is critical that we keep in mind fundamental principles of Christian communication. The audience, not the message, is sovereign. I want to read that again, the audience, not the message is sovereign. If our advertising is going to stop people in the midst of hectic schedules and cause them to think about what we're saying, our message has to be a adapted to the needs of the audience. When we produce advertising that is based on the ticular leave it proposition rather than on sensitivity and response to people's needs. People will invariably reject our message. The audience is sovereign. The goal is to get them to pray the prayer, and the audience is sovereign. So what do you do? What does Sunday morning look like in your average so called evangelical church. It looks like a marketing campaign that's all geared toward the close. We got used car salesmen passing as pastors, and the entire presentation, from the choreographed singers, to the wonderful use of video, to the lights, to the drama, to everything something else, it's all choreographed perfectly to get you to that point where you feel like your needs have been met and that if you just pray this prayer, you can go from this level of happiness to this level of happiness, just like that. Don't believe me. Listen to this from the most popular church growth book ever written. Now, I don't get you. If you go to ten churches in a ten mile just take a ten mile radius around where we are now and just go visit any ten churches. Eight of them will be organized around the principles in the book The Purpose Driven Church. It is the number one all time most popular church growth book out there, and everywhere you go you find churches organized around these purposes that are given here in Purpose Driven Church, and classes that are organized you know, one oh one, two one, three oh one, four oh one. All this, even the terminology, it all comes from here. But what does Rick Warren say in Purpose Driven Church on this issue of evangelism? Listen and I quote. It is my deep conviction that anybody can be one to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart. That key to each person's heart is unique, so it is sometimes difficult to discover. It may take some time to identify it, but the most likely place to start is with that person's felt needs. This is the approach Jesus used. Where do we after? Just pray this prayer, Invite Jesus into your heart. You are the sovereign. It all depends on you. God's done all that he can do. Now you have to do your part, and he's waiting, He's yearning. Can't you just see his arms open wide begging you to come in. This is the picture that people are painting. Has anybody else ever been there? Amen? But is that the gospel? Is that salvation? It most assuredly is not. Now I want you to contrast that with a couple of these statements. Listen to this from the Heidelberg Catechism from the sixteenth century. Question number one of the Heidelberg Catechism. Now, we've been doing the catechism for boys and girls, we've been doing the Kiddi Catechism, and we're working our way through that. Okay, we get through that, and we'll work out way to another catechism. Eventually we'll get to Heidelberg. But in case you're wondering what it would look like if we were doing Heidelberg, just you know question number one. Okay, just just question number one. Remember question number one from the Children's Catechism. Who made you? God made me wonderful? That's question number one. How about Westminster the shorter Catechism. What is the chief end of man? To what if I got and enjoy him forever? That's question number one, that's great, wonderful. Heidelberg Question number one, what is thy only comfort in life and death? That I, with body and soul both in life and death, am not my own but belong unto my faithful savior, Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins and delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserved me without the will of excuse me, so preserved me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head. Yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation. And therefore by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. That's question one in the Heiderberd Catechism. That's the basics, the basics of what it means to be a Christian. You ask somebody in our culture, not just anybody. You go find somebody who's superintendent of a Sunday school department, somewhere in the finest church that you know of, and you ask them what salvation is. They will not give you the story of Jesus and the Cross. They will give you the story of themselves. The personal pronouns that are used will not be third person singular he. They will be first person singular. I you're a Christian. Yes, I had a terrible life. Then I invited Jesus to come into my life. Now I am happier than I used to be. That's what you hear. That's what you hear again. Another contrast. Listen to this Canons of the Senate of Dort again, just talking about the basics. What is the gospel, what is salvation? And what are we talking about here? Listen to this, For this was the sovereign council and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father, that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of his son should extend to all the elect for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation. That is, it was the will of God that Christ, by the blood of the Cross, whereby he confirmed the New Covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, all those and those only who were from eternity chosen to salvation and given to him by the Father, that he should confer upon them faith, which, together with all other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, he purchased for them by his death, should purge them from all sin, both original and actual, whether committed before or after. Believing and having faithfully preserved them even to the end, should at last bring them free from every spot and blemish to the enjoyment of glory in his own presence forever. Now you run into that. That's what salvation is. Salvation is not you and your sovereignty inviting Jesus into your life. He's the God of the universe. If he wants the door of your life open, he'll kick it in. Amen. He is the savior of God's elect and he will bring all of them to salvation. Now one of them will perish, not one of them will be lost. And so here at this crossroads we see these things. First of all, there's two suppers that meet at this crossroads here in March chapter fourteen, and we understand what's happening here in this new Covenant to suppers. First of all, there is the Passover meal, and secondly there is the Lord's Supper. These two meet here. Now, there are a lot of evidences here that this was actually the Passover meal, not the least of which is the Passover meal I had to be enjoyed in Jerusalem within the city walls of Jerusalem. Now, after you enjoy the Passover meal in Jerusalem, you could not leave from the greater Jerusalem area, And so they went out to the Mount of Olive. They didn't go over to Bethany. They state in the greater Jerusalem area. Next, they were reclining as they ate. Fourthly, they also ate it in the evening. Now, in Jewish life you ate two meals. You ate a breakfast meal early in the morning, and then later on in the early afternoon you ate your supper. You did not have a meal in the evening, but this meal was enjoyed in the evening, which is further evidence that this was the Passover. Next, it ended with a hymn, probably Psalm one sixteen, one seventeen or one eighteen. They sang one of those songs because these were the songs that were dedicated for the Passover. So they chose one of those one fifteen, one sixteen, one seventeen, or one eighteen, and they sang that before they went out. There was the interpretation of the elements, which also evidence is the fact that they were enjoying the passover and it was customary to give some money to the poor you ever wonder when Jesus looks at Judas and says, what you must do, go and do quickly. You ever wonder how come the rest of the apostles didn't just say he's the one. Yeah, think about that. That Jesus was basically saying, you know, I'm gonna identify for you who the person is. And he looks at Judas and he says, Judas, what you must do, Go and do it quickly. You need to go and betray me, Go and do it quickly. You would think that at that moment all of the other disciples would have said, oh no, not Judas. They didn't think anything of it. Why what you must do, go and do quickly. He's the keeper of the purse. After the meal, you go and give alms to the poor. But you want to make sure that you don't go over into the next day, So you got to hurry up and go do it. What you must do, keeper of the purse. Now that we've eaten the passover meal, go quickly and give money to the poor, because that's how you consummate this passover meal. So he looks at Judas and he says, go and complete what we've started. Here in the Passover meal. What you must do, go now and do quickly the irony. Judas is supposed to go and give money to the poor. Instead he goes and gets his thirty pieces of silver, re turning Jesus in. And so here they are at the Passover supper. We understand this from Exodus chapter twelve. They gather here at the passover to remember what God has done in delivering his people from bondage in Egypt. But Jesus institutes another meal here at the Passover. And in our text he says they were eating, and he took the bread, and after blessing it, he broke it, and he gave it to them, and he said, take this is my body. The company says, take this is the new covenant in my blood. And so the passover meal, you interpret the elements. And what are those elements. Well, you eat the lamb, you eat the bitter herbs, you eat this sort of fute fruit puree, and these things all symbolize what happened back then in the Exodus. This is to symbolize the lamb whose blood was put on the doorposts, so though he might be saved. This these bitter herbs are to symbolize the bitterness of our slavery. This fury here is to symbolize us having to make bricks without straw. All of these things had meaning, they were all interpreted. But Jesus comes to this passover land, to this Passover Supper, and he reinterprets the supper. Now, all of a sudden, he says, You've always thought that what was significant here was the bitterness of the slavery. But I'm telling you that this is about my broken body. This is about my blood that was shed for you. So here at the crossroads of salvation, two meals come together, the old meal, which pointed to the deliverance of God's people from Israel, and the new meal, which now points to the deliverance of God's people from their sins. I have a dear friend of mine, and last year at Passover was the first opportunity that he ever had to go and enjoy the satyrn with a Jewish family, and it just ministered to him. It was unbelievable and unbelievable powerful experience. I encourage people, if you've never had that experience, to go and to have that experience. And he came back in his I mean, his whole world was messed up, and he was like, Vodie, why didn't I know about this? Why didn't I know about those elements there at the table? Why didn't I know about those four cups of wine? And that Jesus gives this blessing with the cup and it's probably the third cup, and then he doesn't take the fourth cup and symbolically he says he's only going to take that one in the kingdom. Why didn't I know about this? Why wasn't I aware of this? I said, well, probably because you've never been in church where they practice systematic exposition, and nobody ever got around to it, because when you're looking for people's felt needs, they don't feel like they need to know how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Passover meal. So if all your preaching is to felt needs, you're not going to get to something so technical and doctrinal and theological. That's why you've never heard about it before. And he goes, well, I tell you what, every year, I'm going to try to find a Jewish family and go and enjoy this meal with them, to which I responded, why that's a done deal. That was foreshadowing that meal has been replaced by another. It's great to experience it, it's great to understand what Jesus did. But Jesus didn't die on the cross so that you could go back to old Jewish traditions and perpetuate them. You can't say amen. You have to say ouch, it's great that you've experienced that, but we don't go back. We go forward. Amen. That's one thing. If you're a Jewish person and that's part of your ethnic heritage, praise the Lord, go get after it, do it with your family, and interpret Jesus in it every year. Amen. But it's another thing for us to say. For my Christian experience to be full, I just feel like I need to experience the Passover meal every year. No, there is nothing lacking in what Christ has done for us. Nothing. Two meals met here, the Passover Meal and the Lord's Supper. And when we gather together each week, we observed the Lord's Supper, and we are looking back at what the Lord has done and looking forward to that moment of fulfillment when we will again enjoy this in the presence of our great Savior. Two meals met here next, two lambs met here at the crossroads of Salvation. The people would have understood again from Exodus twelve. You go and you get a lamb, a male lamb without spot or blemish, And this lamb was slain, and this lamb was consumed by the way, all of the lamb had to be consumed. No leftovers from passover, Amen, No left at Why because you have to eat it in haste. It symbolizes that last night in Egypt. No leftovers. You're getting out of here. The death Angel's gonna come and they're gonna let you go. No leftovers, don't pack anything up. Whatever you don't eat, you burn. Okay, the lamb must be consumed. Here they are sitting before the passover lamb, and we've talked about this before, and all of a sudden they're realizing the truth of the words that John spoke when he saw Jesus behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Here at the crossroads of Salvation, two meals are juxtaposed, and two lambs are juxtaposed. The very Lamb of God is here partaking of this meal of the lamb that symbolizes his own sacrifice. Did Jesus know he had to die, You better believe he did. Just like the lamb that he ate that night had to be completely consumed. He, the very lamb of God, had to offer himself as well as a ransom for many. Listen to this in Isaiah chapter fifty three and verse seven. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that has led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before it shears, is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Listen to this in One Peter one seventeen. And if you call on him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransom from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers. Now not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like the lamb of God, without blemish or spot. Revelation chapter five, beginning verse six, and between the throne and the four living creatures, and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns. It was seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God, set out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and a golden bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Then down in verse eleven. Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriad of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying to him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. The Lamb, the passover Lamb, was insufficient, but Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain once for all the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us back to God. Two lambs met that night. One was insufficient, the other was holy and utterly sufficient. So sufficient was the death of this lamb that if God were to decide tonight that he wanted a billion more people to be numbered among the elect, the lamb would not have to shed one more drop of blood for that extra billion, not one. Completely and utterly sufficient was the blood of the lamb. Two suppers collided that night. Two lambs collided that night. But two atoms also met that night on the crossroads, the first atom and the second atom. And two covenants met that night on the crossroads. And here's where I want us to camp out. I want you to understand this. Two main covenants. There are many covenants that we see in scripture, and God is a god of covenants, But there are two main covenants, and all other covenants explain these two covenants. Number one is the Covenant of Works. The Covenant of Works is the covenant that God makes with Adam. And it's a very simple covenant. Obey and you will live. Don obey and you will die, You and all those whom you represent. And Adam was our federal head. And so God creates Adam perfect and sinless. He bears the imago day, the very image of God. He is there in the garden. He has tinged in the garden. And even before the law so to speak, that would come and exodus. And then again in Deuteronomy, God gave Adam a very simple law. All the trees in the garden you may eat, but from the tree in the center of the garden, do not eat. From the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. And so he has the law of God even there and here in this Covenant of Works, it's very simple. Our federal head, Adam has the opportunity, as our representative to achieve the requirements in this Covenant of works. But he does not. He falls there in chapter three. Doesn't take long. Amen end of chapter one, beginning of chapter two, we get this Covenant of words. By chapter three it's gone, it's over, and so no longer is there this Covenant of works. Now there is this Covenant of Grace. That's the new covenant, this Covenant of Grace. There was failure in the Covenant of Works. But here's what I want you to understand. Adam was our federal head. So you and I were in Adam when he fell, because he's our federal head. Let me explain it to you this way. It's hard for us to understand this because of the nature of our government, but understand it from the standpoint of kings. Now, a king is a federal head of his people. Now, as the federal head of his people, a king could do this. I'm the king of one nation, you're the king of another nation. So you and I we sit down and we're gonna have a talk. Myself and King DICLEMENI, we're gonna have a talk. The talk doesn't go well. I look at King diclemeny, and I say, on, behalf of myself and my people. I declare war against you and your people. I haven't even gotten back home to my kingdom yet, but every person who's a citizen of my kingdom is now at war with his kingdom. Why because I, as their federal head, just declared war. You see that, because I'm the federal head. Adam was the federal head of all humanity. So when he fell, all humanity fell. You get that, So all of us are in trouble. According to the covenant, it works every last one of us. We can't get there from here. So God gives us the law. Why does he give us the law? Well, in Galatians, Paul tells us the law's a headmaster. The law is there to teach you. See, you don't come into this world realizing that you can't make it via the covenant of works. So here's the law to remind you that you can't make it. And all of a sudden, there's a law there. Have you ever noticed you never, ever in your life want to touch a part bench. You just don't, except one time, one occasion where everything in you says touch it. When when there's a sign on it that says wet paint, do not touch. You never thought about it. And then there's a sign that says, wet pain, do not touch. And what do you do? That's what the law does. The law teaches you that you're a sinner. You can't keep the law. And so here we have the covenant of works. Jesus. However, as the second atom accomplishes what the first atom could not, he fulfills the covenant of works. And here's where a lot of people miss it. They look at the passive obedience of Christ. And in the passive obedience of Christ, they say, well, of course Jesus died for our sins. Absolutely, Jesus died for our sins so that we could be forgiven. However, there was also the active obedience of Christ. And in the active obedience of Christ, he kept the whole law perfectly, thus fulfilling the requirements of the Covenant of Works, and being the mediator and sacrifice in the Covenant of grace as well. Why is it important this phrase that we hear in Galatians and the fullness of time. God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law. Why did Jesus have to come as a human being, as a man, Why to fulfill the Covenant of Works, so that he could therefore and thereby impute to us complete righteousness. So I was in Adam when he failed, and therefore I am sinful and unrighteous. According to Ephesius Chapter one, Where was I when Christ kept the law? I was in Christ? So guess what that makes me righteous? A man highly praise the Lord. I's pentecostal I'd be shouting and running all around his building right now. I was in Christ. So his righteousness has been imputed to me. God made him who knew no sin, to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Now let me see, let me show you this. A lot of people think, oh, when it comes to the virgin birth, there's no big deal there. We can give up on the doctrine of the virgin birth. No, we cannot. Why because had there not been a virgin birth, Jesus would have been born in sin like the rest of us. But in Genesis chapter three and verse fifteen, God says to the serpent, there will be enmity between you and the seed of the woman, not the seed of the man. How ieronic is that? How do you talk about people's lineage the seed of the man. But God says, I will put enmity between you and the seed of the woman, and he you will bruise his heel, but he will crush your head. So the Gospel has preached even way back in Genesis chapter three and verse fifteen. So we have the seed of the woman married, but not the seed of the man. Joseph, So that number one Jesus can be our representative in two covenants both the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. By virtue of his virgin birth, he also has actively obeyed all of the law and has kept all of the law, so that he has complete and utter righteousness under the Covenant of Works, and is thereby our representative there and worthy to be our representative in the Covenant of Grace. So when you talk about, for example, the perseverance of the Saints, it's absolutely ludicrous to think that a person could lose their salvation. Why because if you are among the elect you were in Christ when he kept the law. You were in Christ when he died for sin. You were also in Christ when he was resurrected, and you were in Christ when he ascended. You are now in Christ, seated in the heavenly places. You're in Christ. How do you lose that? You can't. You can't. We only think people can lose their salvation because we think wrongly about what salvation is. Salvation is not about what I do inviting Jesus into my life. Salvation is about what God did before I was born, before I was thought of, in electing me and in Christ keeping the law on my behalf, and in Christ punishing sin on my behalf and in Christ, raising me and sitting me in heavenly places in Christ. So just like Christ has been raised, i too, because I'm in Christ, shall be raised. It is absolutely inevitable if I'm in Christ. Nothing else is possible if I'm in Christ. It is unreasonable to expect anything else if I'm in Christ. But we have difficulty why because we, because of what we've been taught by our culture, want to confer salvation on every person who walked an aisle and pray to prayer. That is not That is not Bible. The majority of people who walk aisles and pray prayers have not been converted. They are not saved period, They've not been born again. They have it. Salvation is a sovereign work of Almighty God from beginning to end. Listen to this. Romans chapter five. Turn with me. There, I'm turned in the wrong way Romans chapter five. So don't feel bad if you've ever done that. The preacher just did it. I'm in Mark. I'm turning to the left to get the Romans Romans chapter five. Even Abraham, we saw that in Romans chapter four. By the way Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So even Abraham was not being held to the covenantive works. That covenant with Abraham was a covenant of grace by faith. Abraham was reckoned as righteous by faith. He was declared righteous by God by faith. It's always been by faith, always shall be by faith. We had that catechism question earlier about how those who hoped and and God were saved before Christ. How were they saved by looking forward to the work that Christ would accomplish when he fulfills this covenant of grace. They look forward to that. They were not hoping in the covenantive works. They realized that they couldn't do that. And even Abraham, the father of the faithful, why was he righteous? According to Romans chapter four, it was credited to him, he was declared right. No by faith, by faith. Did God see something in Abraham? No, He's an er of the caldis. He's a sinner like everybody else. As someone pointed out this weekend, it's very ironic that the first Jew was a gentile. Amen. Abraham is a gentile. The Jewish people came from him. He's the first one. There were no Jews before Abraham, he's there earn the caldis. He's a gentile. God makes of him a nation. Why because he's better than all the other people, because there's something in him. Nope, election, sovereignty of God. I choose you. Why because I'm not running for God, I'm just God. So we see election even there. Look here in Romans chapter five, beginning verse twelve. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. So he was a type of the one who was to come. There's another atom who's going to come. Told you there's two atoms who met here at this meal that night, the first atom in the second atom. They meet here, and so in the flesh we have this idea of the representative of the first atom. But in keeping the covenant of works, satisfying all the righteous requirements of God, we have the second atom, who does not fail as the first atom did. And he also is the federal head of all his people who according to him, all those whom the Father had given to him. To is the covenant of redemption between the Father and the son. And so here it is the Father makes a covenant with the son. And here's the covenant that the father makes with the son. The son says, I'm going to give you all of these people. You just go die for them and redeem them. And they're yours, every last one of them, all of them, every last one. So when Christ comes and lays down his life on the cross, he's not laying down his life and sitting there on the cross thinking, oh, I hope somebody gets this. That's the picture of Jesus that's painted in the average church today. He's on the cross going, oh, oh, I hope somebody gets this. Before he hangs his head, he says, my part's done. The risk is up to you. No, Jesus says to tell us die. It is finished, all of it. It's finished. So what do I do? I just get redeemed? Well, what do I bring? Surely I bring something, you know. Martin Luther actually was asked this question early on in the Reformation, and he formed his response by way of apology. He said, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that man brings nothing to his salvation experience. He does. He brings sin and guilt. That's it. Well, certainly I bring my faith. No, you bring faith that you borrowed from God. Ephesus chapter two makes that clear. For our grace have even saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not as a result of work, so that no one can boast. Even the faith that you placed in Jesus Christ was a gift you from God. And the evidence that you are among the elect is that you have that gift of faith. Amen. That is why even those who believe in the doctrine of election still preach the Gospel and say repent and believe. Well, why would you do that if they're elect and they're going to be saved, and if they're not elect, they're not going to be saved. Yes, but God has chosen to use the foolishness of preaching, and he calls all men everywhere repent. Believe. Now, I'm aware of the fact that even that is a gift that God gives. But just like the prophet in the valley of dry bones, those of us who proclaim the Gospel, say, Lord, please cause your wind to blow and make these dry bones live. Jesus is the author and perfector of our faith. That's the Gospel. He's not yearning or begging. He is calling all men everywhere repent and believe the Gospel. He's not trying to find the key to your heart through your felt means. He's not hoping that he can say just the right thing through the preacher. He is simply making known through the proclamation of the Gospel, what he himself has known since the foundation of the earth. Listen to this about the Covenant of Grace the Second London Baptist Confession of Confession, the sixteen eighty nine Baptist Confession, which is the principal confession of this church, Chapter seven, paragraph two. Moreover, man, having brought himself under the curse of the Law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him that they may be saved and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit, and make them willing and able to believe. I love that, and to make them willing and able to believe com paragraph three. This covenant is revealed in the Gospel, first of all Adam in the promise of salvation by the seat of a woman, and afterward by father steps, until full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament. And it is founded in the eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the son about the redemption of the elect. There's a covenant of the redemption. And it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved, did obtain life and blessed immortality. Man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which atoms stood in the state of innocency, you can't get there from here. So what happens at the cross roads of salvation. There is the juxtaposition of two meals, one a foreshadowing of the other. There is the juxtaposition of two lambs, one a foreshadowing of the other. There is the juxtaposition of two atoms, one a foreshadowing of the other. And there is the juxtaposition of two covenants, one foreshadowing of the other. And now here in this room we stand at the crossroads of salvation. And there are two responses. One response is I'll take my chances. The other response is I have no chance, and I throw myself on the mercy of Almighty God through repentance and faith, as the Lord God would grant them. We are always at the crossroads. Here's what this also means. There are some of you who came into this room today and your Christian life consists of beating yourself to death. Why because you think you were saved by the Covenant of grace, but you're kept by the covenant of works. You don't believe that the blood of Jesus was sufficient to get you all the way through. So you beat yourself to death, and you have lists that you keep, lists to which you hold yourself. Michael Horton says, like those pharisees about whom Jesus spoke, you neither mourn nor dance. Amen, you got neither one. On the one hand, you've turned your back on the law, so you know that you're not supposed to just keep the whole law, but there are little pieces of it that you'd really like to hold yourself to, and so you hold yourself to those little pieces. But you can't even keep those little pieces. So you don't even mourn like you were supposed to, because that's what the law is for. The law is to break you and make you mourn and make you say, I can't do it. So you try to take little pieces of the law that you think you can help a hold yourself. So you don't mourn, but you don't dance either. You don't rejoice because there's no liberty. There's no freedom in your life whatsoever. And all you do is walk around holding on to this list. But what does Paul say in Colossians, Jesus took that list and all of the handwriting against you, and he nailed it to the cross. How dare you take it back off? But that's what we do. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with me? Jesus says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Do you have rest? Then you haven't come to Jesus. You're beating the daylights out of yourself, and you cannot rejoice. You don't even like the Gospel of grace. Why because you're terrified of the Gospel of grace. Oh no, no, no, because people will take that for granted, and then they will live anyway they want to live. No, if I am in Christ, that cannot be. Turn with me again to Romans and look at the next chapter. Right after chapter five, he anticipates that you get a hold of the Covenant of Grace, and this is what people say. You preach that stuff, and all of a sudden, you know, people just live in lawlessness. Six. What shall we say, then, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound. God loves forgiving, I love sinning match made in heaven? You know? Is that what we do? Because that's the way people think. If you believe this grace stuff, that's what it's going to lead to. By no means, there's that Greek phrase may genoi ta. May it never be closest thing to cussing in the whole Bible. That's a strong, strong phrase. May it never be By no means absolutely not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Look at it. How can we who died in sin, still live in it? Or dietisin rather still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism and to death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. In Second Gridiony, chapter five, he puts it this way. If any man is in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things have passed away, new things have come. Listen, if you are still having to make your new creature your old creature, act like he's new. He not new, He's not new. Is Christ a duty or a delight? To you? Which is it? Which is it? For the redeemed, he's a delight. For those trying their best to keep the covenant of works, he's a duty. He's a duty. But why do we live like that? Here's why we live like that? According to this old system that we're taught almost everywhere that you go today. Remember, the Lord has done as much as he can. Now he's waiting and depending on you to do your part. So according to that Gospel. God is impotent to save you. It only follows that he's impotent to keep you. It's absolutely logical. If he's not powerful enough to save you, he's not powerful enough to keep you. Suleen, just live any old kind of way. Nope, you can't. If you're truly born again, you can't. You can't. You're a new creature. You can't live that way. You don't want to live that way. You don't delight in that anymore. It is Him who works in you, both to will and to do his good pleasure. God will change what you want when you embrace the Covenant of grace. He will change what you want. He changes who you are. And you read his word and you get into his word and you find out things and his word, and all of a sudden, you hate sin just like He hates sin. And so it's not okay. I'm an find a list of things to do, and I'm gonna keep this list. No, you hate sin, you despise sin. You love righteousness, you rejoice in righteousness. You see this at the crossroads of salvation. There's one meal you can choose. Which one are you choosing? You want to go back to the passover, or you want the Lord's Supper. There's two lambs you can choose. You want the lamb that you have to sacrifice every year to remind you of your guilt that hasn't been taken away. You can have it, or you can have the lamb who died once for all to make you righteous in him. Which atom do you want? Do you want the old atom and do you want to work as hard as you can to try to do what he created and sinless perfection couldn't do? Or do you want the new Atom, who did with the first atom could not and has offered to his people as their federal head what the first atom could not offer? Do you want the old covenant or the new one? As you stand at the crossroads of salvation? Which side are you on? Have you bought a lie from our culture? Or have you embraced the gospel of grace? Do you get it? More importantly? Has he gotten you? Has He brought you to that incredible, beautiful place of repentance and faith and forgiveness and newness of life? Or are you doing the double adam two step saved by one, kept by the other. The gospel has been polluted in our day, and as a result of the pollution of the Gospel in our day, we don't even know how to be Christian. Here at the crossroads, there are two ways of looking at salvation. Only one of them at least to redemption. Let's pray