He was made a curse for us.
He had no personal connection with sin,
but He became connected to it
because He loved us.
That made Him a debtor. That made Him a sinner.
Paul says it with a boldness:
"He made Him sin..."
That's why God recoiled.
That's why He sent Him into the far country.
That's why He wouldn't listen to Him when He cried.
That's why He wouldn't look
when the Savior bled and died.
It's a glorious thing that little word: "for."
It is the "for" of substitution.
For us.
My Substitute.
My sin there.
In Christ
on the cross.
And God not sparing,
and we are redeemed
from the curse of the law.
Yea, wash Thou me,
and I shall be whiter than snow.
There is a fountain filled with blood,
drawn from Immanuel's veins,
and sinners plunged beneath that flood
lose all their guilty stains.
He casts our sins into the depths
of the sea of His own forgetfulness.
All my trespasses,
all my mean little sins,
all my sins against those
who love me the most.
All my trespasses.
And of the great mercy seat,
I live under the cover
of that sacrifice.
Once and for all.
It is finished.
Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Lord, give me a covering.
My sin needs to be covered.
(unintelligible)
We have a great high priest.
Well, let's draw near.
Let's come with boldness
and let's find mercy.
All of us, everybody here tonight, come now.
Come now to Christ for mercy.
Come for a covering.
There's a covering here.
It's available for you tonight.
This covering for your sin is here.
Don't leave without a covering.
It's been woven by the agony and bloody sweat
of a Savior
who because of His love
wouldn't come down
until He redeemed you;
until He paid the price;
until He cleared the slate clean.
You go to Him tonight and you say:
Lord, I need a covering.
I need forgiveness.
I need my sin to be forgotten.
Put a veil over it.
And the veil is the obedience of Jesus Christ
to death - even the death of the cross.
I don't believe God ever brings our sins
back to haunt us.
I believe the devil does.
And in our folly, we will go
and we will dive in and seek for them
and find them again in our folly.
The devil will bring them back.
We can often say, ah yes,
God forgives our sins,
but we don't forgive our own sins.
You must. You must.
If the blood of Christ
has satisfied God's righteousness,
it can satisfy your conscience.
I must put my past - my indefensible past,
the thing I am most ashamed of in my life,
I must put it behind me.
I must leave it there.
And sometimes perhaps when you
give your testimony,
you needn't even hint
at what you once were
because grace has changed you,
and the blood has cleansed you,
and the righteousness clothes you,
and the forgetfulness of God
has cast it from you,
and He will never bring it before you again.
And the Judge, when you stand in that great day
and give an account of your life,
that Judge will be the Savior
who gave His life and shed His blood
that you might be ransomed and healed.
Restored and forgiven.
There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus.
You take Him tonight.