Appreciation of Christ

I'd like to read in Genesis chapter 41, please. Genesis chapter 41, just reading at verse 34, please. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint offices over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years.

Now, just over again to chapter 47, I'm reading for a fifth part, as mentioned first here in Scripture, Genesis 47, and verse 24. And it shall come to pass, now this is in the seven years of plenty, and Joseph's dream will be fulfilled. It shall come to pass in the increase that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own for seed of the field, and for food, your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones.

And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's. Now, the book of Leviticus, chapter 5, please. Verse 14, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul commit a trespass and sin through ignorance in the holy things of the Lord, then he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram without blemish, out of the flocks, with high estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering.

And he shall make amends for the harms that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him. And a couple more readings, one in Psalm 69.

Verse 4, They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restore that which I took not away.

And a last reading in Romans 5. Verse 8, But God commended His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath again. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

I want to ask you a question. I'd like to know what you think of the death of Christ. What is your estimate of the value of the death of Christ? I'm not so sure that all in the meeting tonight have even the beginning of an appreciation of the death of Christ.

And if you're not saved here tonight, let me just tell you this. The great difference between where you are at the moment and where the Christians that are here are tonight is their value of the death of Christ. You may talk about all kinds of difficulties you have and you may be thinking about a lot of things that are actually peripheral to this whole matter, but I want you to know tonight that everything rests on the death of Christ.

And so I'm asking the Christians primarily tonight, what's your value of the death of Christ? Now don't be offended if I tell you that whatever your answer is, your appreciation of the death of Christ is too small. I would assume that every single one of us, in fact I am positive that every single one of us who is saved in this meeting tonight appreciates with holy wonder and gratitude the fact that that death of Calvary is finished. That's no small truth revealed to us through the Word of God by the Spirit of God Himself.

And we have rested our soul for eternity on the wondrous truth, Paul expressed it, the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me. And we sing, the cross of Christ is all my boast, His blood my only, the cross of Christ is all my boast, His blood my only plate now and then. My passport to the realms of bliss is Jesus died.

Youngest Christian in the gathering tonight, is that true? Have you forgotten the wonder of discovering through the Word of God that Christ died for me? Oh what a wonderful truth. To think that the one who was the highest of the high, the one who deserved the worship of every created being, incessantly from our very beginning, every created being should have bowed at His feet and brought worship to Him. And instead of that, man led the great rebellion and every one of us participated in it and raised our fist to the throne of God.

And God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And on that cross, God's eternal Son had David Oliver in mind.

Don't ask me to explain that. I'm not taking anything away from you, but I know He had me in mind. And He died for me, because He loved me.

If that's all I had to say tonight, that would be funny, wouldn't it? But sometimes I think when we worship, for example, when I hear the worship of my beloved brothers on a Lord's Day morning, it almost seems to me that the boundaries of our appreciation of the death of Christ are as if you and I were the center of the universe. And the only thing that really makes Him worthy of praise is He died for me. Now, I'm not taking anything away from you.

But what I want to just remind us about tonight is this. There's much more. And you'll say to me, just be gentle with me at the fact night, just be gentle with me.

But you will say to me at the end of the meeting, David, you said our estimate of the death of Christ is too small, and I've concluded by listening to you that your estimate of the death of Christ is too small. You'll be right. And if you see me a billion years from now, I will appreciate the death of Christ more then than I appreciate Him now.

I appreciate His death. But it will still be true a billion years from now, that my estimate of the death of Christ is too small. There's much more.

I want to ask you then just to think with me, as best we can, something of the effectiveness of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. Who first of all benefits? Who first of all receives from the death of Christ? Oh, I don't know. We all started out with, He died for me.

But tell me now, who has the right to expect the most from the death of Christ? Who has the right to receive? If no one else ever receives anything from the death of Christ, who has the right to receive everything from the death of Christ? You have no right, neither do I have any right to receive anything from the death of Christ. But what does that death mean to God? If I could just plumb partway down this subject, in all its profound depth, I think it would cause every heart to overflow with wonder and worship of what took place at Calvary. As far as God is concerned, His person has been honored infinitely by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do I have this right? That every sin is an attack on the person of God. Every sin says, in the presence of God, you do not deserve to be God. Every sin says, I have the right to decide what is right.

I have the right to choose what I wish to choose. I have the right to be served by my choices, by my sin. It's up to me, I'm the one that's important, and you are irrelevant.

Nobody has ever said that, I don't think, have you? Not in those words that every time you or I have sinned, you've said that to God. The very person of God. Listen, there was once perhaps His highest created being, or at least one of His highest created beings.

Now, we say about Satan that he desired to be greater than God. Satan knows better than you do, if you say that. Because Satan would know you can't be better than God, you can't be greater than God.

I shouldn't say all, but what the Bible says is he desired to be as God. To have equal right with God. And that's exactly what every sin claims.

I have equal right with God to decide what is right. I have equal right to do with myself what I will to do with myself, and not what God wills to do with me. Every sin is an attack on the person of God.

Every sin is an attack on the very character of God. I know better than God what's good for me. Now, you're all looking at me like I'm a different kind of sinner from you.

But I know. I know that if it's here, it's there. That doesn't give me any comfort.

I wish it weren't here, and I wish it weren't there. But the reality is this. You know, what happens when we get into a tight spot? And the will of God for us is difficult.

What do we do? Well, our first response, and I think I'm right, our first response is, that might be what God says is good for me, but I don't think that is good for me. You know what I just did? The very same thing as Satan. I will be as God.

I have as much capability to decide what's good as God has. Every sin attacks the righteousness of God. Every sin attacks the fairness of God.

Every sin attacks the goodness of God. Every sin ultimately says that God is not perfect in his character. I think that's what holiness means.

That there is absolutely nothing missing in the character of God. Every moral attribute that is positive is full in the character of God. In absolute, complete measure, perfect, holy.

God is light, and in him, no darkness at all. The full beaming of every moral quality that is good. All family.

God himself is holy. And I sit and say in the presence of God, I don't think God is really good after all. I can determine what is good.

If I had my way, it would be this, and not what God has. Something about the very person, the very character, the very throne, God. Talked to a young man not too long ago.

Told me a strange thing, I really don't need to tell you the whole circumstances, but shortly after he was saved, he thought of how wonderful it was that he was saved from the punishment of his sins. And he thought to himself, what a terrible thing that God would actually have sent me to hell. Such a severe judgment from God.

I'm trying to be careful in what I say, because I do. Some of you are going to take me aside and help me out on this later, but I do think he's saved. There are other reasons why.

But that thought entering into the mind that actually God should not have the throne of justice. I don't deserve that degree of punishment for my sins. Do you understand? Am I painting a picture that's so forth of all this? Or is there something about all of this that reminds us the tremendous offense to God as a result of sin? Your sin and my sin.

A world seething, bubbling over with sin against God. And on that cross, there was one solitary significant act that declared that God is God and he deserves to be God. That God is right.

That God's character is good. Everything that God claims he is, he is. Because there was on that cross a sacrifice for the pleasure of God.

If there were nothing else, there was one who went to that cross and said, God deserves highest honor. God deserves absolute obedience. God deserves to receive glory.

Whatever the price may be. And on that cross, he gave himself. Offered himself by the eternal spirit without spot to God.

Ephesians chapter 5 reminds us that what he gave at that cross was an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. God received in that one sacrifice an answer for every offense of sin. The person who there on that cross bowed himself willingly, delighting to do the will of God, declared that God himself deserves highest honor.

Let me just go to a part of a verse. No, maybe it is the whole last verse of Romans chapter 11. For through him and to him.

Nope, I'll have to even look at it. I got the to him part and that's what I want to get to. Chapter 11 and the last verse says, For of him and through him and to him are all things.

For of him, it comes from him. And through him he is the means by which all is accomplished. And to him are all things.

That simply means, what a lofty statement that is about God. That everything ought to be for the praise and glory of God. That God has the right that everything should be for his honor and nothing else should be considered.

And there was one who went to that cross. And for the honor of God, nothing else could be considered. He gave himself to bring eternal honor and pleasure to God.

I didn't express that well enough. I don't see me buying it. But it's true.

God received infinite glory at Calvary. And if no other benefit ever came from Calvary, first of all, God is worthy of Calvary. And second of all, all the rest must take second place.

But not only did God receive from Calvary, there is as well what Christ received from Calvary. I would remind us that he didn't go to Calvary for his own end. But I will tell you tonight, that he could not go to that cross without his father and his God being sure that he will have a full recompense for all that he suffered at Calvary.

And when you think of what is given to us in Ephesians chapter 2, unto him be glory through the church forever and ever, ages without end. The age of the ages. There will forever be a revenue of worship and praise and honor for the Lord Jesus.

Because, the words of Psalm 22, just at the end, because he hath done this. Do you believe tonight, that if you never received anything from the cross of Christ, that he deserves to have full glory and worship and honor forever? He bows his head, submissive to his God. He stoops to a depth that no other human has ever stooped to.

Anyone else that came in that direction was forced in that direction. He came to the very lowest place, in subjection to his God. Wherefore, God says, the one that is willing to stoop so low for my glory is the one that will have the highest place.

Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him, and given him the name which is above everything, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is born to the glory of God the Father. You find in Psalm 22, you know the two halves of that Psalm. The sufferings of Christ at the beginning, the glories after these.

And when you come to that last part, and I think maybe we ignore, to a greater degree, the last part of Psalm 22. The first part is amazing. It's enough that, if that's all you had for your book of worship for the next 500 Sundays, I think you could survive.

I think you could thrive. But somehow, we maybe overlook the circles of praise that widen as you come to the last part of Psalm 22. Here is one, who though he was alone on the cross, will be surrounded, leading the song of the tribes of Judah, leading the song of restored Israel, leading the song of Gentiles that have been saved, leading the song of a universe, because he has done this.

Oh, the tremendous value of the death of Christ and what it means to Christ. If you borrow the words from Lamentation, remembering the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath been still in remembrance. He will never forget Calvary.

He will never forget the sufferings of Calvary. And he will forever enjoy full glory, that only God could accomplish, that will in every way answer to what took place at Calvary. Every mark we sing, every mark of darkness on earth.

He took on his sword, grabbed all the depths of his heart, so he told in answer, glory. Now, it was true the moment he ascended to heaven. It's true 2,000 years later, and 5 billion, I don't know how many years that is.

However many you can conceive of and number, however many years it will be, he will always have the glory that is rightly his. But I think, I think we could come down further than that. Because, I think that there's a result for the universe in the dead.

Because the universe has been touched by sin. I take it that Adam was set over God's creation. What Adam did in the Garden of Eden has had an effect on the whole creation.

I will go to Romans chapter 8. The whole creation is groaning and travailing together in pain until now. There is somehow unheard minor music that has filled the universe because of sin. There's something wrong.

The universe is winding down. I think that that's what you have. Quoting in, in Hebrews chapter 1 from the Old Testament psalm, where you have the earth decaying and there is this slowing down, this winding down.

The garments getting old is going to have to be cast off. The whole universe has been affected by sin. And I don't want to minimize tonight the reality that what God intended for this universe, blinded by sin, God will still accomplish.

And this universe will, in its every atom or neutron or I don't know whatever, the smallest particle of this universe one day express the glory of God. I think that's what it means in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. God shall be all in all.

Everything in this universe, how it will be, it's all right, don't ask me to explain what I'm telling you tonight. I'm just telling you that's all the best I can do. But everything in this universe will be in harmony with the purpose of God.

It was when it came from his hand, but in a far greater sense it will be in a day that's coming. And why? It could not be accomplished apart from the suffering and death of Christ of Calvary. Am I being really telling you tonight that God could not simply have said all right, things have gotten off track in Eden, and I'm going to just make the universe what I meant it to be anyway.

In some sense he did, but in some sense it could not have done that apart from Calvary. What God will accomplish in the universe is that every suffering of Christ at Calvary, the universe, has been affected as well. The whole race has been affected by what took place at Calvary.

Adam was a type of him that was to come. And God said, this is how I am going to arrange my dealings with the human family. There will be one man who is a representative and his one act will be representative for the whole human family, all his posterity.

You remember what happened when David went down to see his brothers and Israel was all lined up for battle and trembling in their boots? Remember? Because the big fellow on the other side came down into the valley and he defied the God of Israel and the armies of the God of Israel. And he said, you send me a man and if he can defeat me, then we're all defeated. That's what he says.

One man represented a whole nation of Israel. One man represented a whole nation of the Philistines. Big story, isn't it? You don't have to be a child to appreciate this.

And down he runs into the valley. Don't think he was 20 years old. I'll tell you why.

Because when they numbered the people that were able to bear arms, they numbered them and they tried out the uniform. It wasn't that they didn't fit. He was not a man who was of the age of someone in the army, a soldier, able to bear arms.

He goes in with a sling and God. And one loose stone went into the sling and the sling went round and round and it wasn't very long before that sling ended up in a place where the giant never thought it would be. And the giant fell to the ground.

David takes off his head and says, Philistine army ran. Why? The one representative was defeated and they were defeated. And in Eden's Garden, the one representative of the race was defeated.

With one act of disobedience, many are constituted sinners. And the whole race that follows from Adam, all constituted before God sinners. And it's not just something external that God pronounced.

It has affected every aspect of what you are and what you do. And you say, how could it be fair that I'm under condemnation of death when I didn't do it? It was Adam that did it. Well, just a minute now.

You've agreed with Adam a whole lot of times. Don't blame Adam. You've agreed with him a lot of times.

You've made your own choice. This is exactly what he did. But what you have done does not have the impact of what he did because he was the type of him that was to come.

How could God ever have pronounced every sinner righteous who trusts Christ by the act of one man, the obedience of one man? How could God possibly do that if he had not set up in the beginning Adam as a one representative for the whole race? God says, this is the way I am going to work because I have another in mind. Adam is just the type of him. He is the one, not the one that's going to bring condemnation and death, but he is the one that is going to bring life.

One act of disobedience on Adam's part and many constituted, unrighteous, many constituted sinners. One act of obedience on the part of Christ and many constituted right in the sight of God. And on that promise, when the Lord Jesus bowed in obedience and when he gave himself a sacrifice on that promise, that opened up a whole line of liberty for the entire race.

Every soul that sides with Christ, every soul that turns from Adam and trusts Christ, every soul is brought into all the blessings of that one man who gave himself on the cross. What an outcome of what took place on that cross for every one of us that is saved. The old man, don't get upset.

The old man was crucified with Christ. All my connection with Adam was severed. I could never have been delivered from when I was an Adam had it not been for the death of Christ.

I would never have been delivered from the slavery of sin apart from the suffering and death of Christ at Calvary. I could never have been engulfed by the Spirit of God apart from the suffering and death of Christ at Calvary. I would never have had anything of that if it had not been for the suffering and death of Christ.

You don't know what I just did, but I just went in my mind from Romans 5 to Romans 8 just to think of all that has been brought to us, all the manifold blessings of God. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Paul says, I am forsaken, neither death nor life, present nor things past, nor height nor depth nor any other creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why? Because Christ died at Calvary.

Oh, the tremendous benefit, the tremendous effect for the race, the tremendous effect for the nation of Israel. Because from the foundation of the world, God created this world to accomplish the will of God. And nobody here is having trouble with this, I hope, but I will just tell you this.

If God does not fulfill what he promised to do for the nation of Israel, it's not all fulfilled yet and what God has done with the church doesn't begin to fulfill it. If God does not fulfill the literal promises of Christ, just because, you know from the past, God spoke about redemption and he redeemed Israel through the Red Sea. Ah, more than that, the redemption that was pictured there was accomplished at the place called Calvary.

All the future for the nation of Israel depends on the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus, who is secured by the blood that was shed on the cross at Calvary. One day they'll appreciate it. And they'll look on him whom they have pierced and they'll wail because of him.

And there will be a fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. And all that that nation needs will all have been secured by the death of the Lord Jesus at Calvary. You say, you know what? If it's of interest to God, it's of interest to me.

And I'm thankful that God is going to fulfill his word and bring that nation from being the tail of the nation to being the head. And bring that nation to be the nation which will own allegiance to Christ and with Christ will reign over the earth. Ah, what a tremendous result there is from that cross at Calvary.

But wait a minute. What's the greatest thing that God will ever do? The greatest thing that God will ever do will be to give a bride to his son. I will follow the day also when thou hast given me.

Be with me where I am that they may behold my glory for thou lovest me before the foundation from this. There is a people that the father in matchless love to his son has purposed will be his son's forever. And I want you to know she will not be some shabby bride.

A reign in all the glory that God himself can give to her shining with the glory of God Revelation chapter 21. And I'll be part of it. The greatest thing that God has ever done you and I will be sitting right there in the front seat.

I don't mean that we deserve the front seat. I just mean the front seat of the grace of God will be there to be forever to the praise of the glory of the grace. Oh, I want to tell you that is the result of Calvary for Christ to love the church and gave himself for it that he might be sanctified unto himself in all the grandeur of what the eternal purpose of God for the church is.

It is to cure the suffering and death of Christ at Calvary. Every purpose of God all that God will ever do he will do based on what took place on that cross at Calvary. And so when I think of believers and all that we enjoy presently did you ever spend fifteen minutes enumerating in your mind all the blessings that are yours in Christ? And when you got down about nine minutes finished you had trouble finishing it, didn't you? I think if we all took a day and then got our lists all together I don't think we'd have accomplished this we'd have exhausted the subject.

Every one of those blessings that are ours at this moment were purchased by precious blood. And what do you think it will be like to be in heaven? You don't know, do you? There's nothing that we can bring along aside here on earth and say well it's really like that. All we can say is it's just not like this and it's not like that.

It's not like anything we know in this world. No death, no suffering, no sorrow, no pain. No goodbyes.

Nothing that we are so familiar with here is just altogether different. And a million years from now when you have a little idea of what it will be like to be in heaven all that was purchased by the suffering and shame of a man upon a cross outside Jerusalem. And, according to Paul there's one God and one mediator between God and men the man called Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all.

He is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the whole world. Will you understand that God has received enough in the death of Christ to cover every single sin of every single sinner to cover all the offense of human nature in every single child of Adam ever born, Christ the part. There has been a full answer for everything in the death of Christ.

But you know all that's good. No, no. All that's transcendent.

But you know what also thrills my heart is just to think with you about the excellence of that sacrifice. Why was that sacrifice excellent? Why is it possible that one act in human history it took place in a part of a day why is it possible that one act of such short duration is sufficient to affect eternity all that is to come all from the beginning of creation. How can that one act have such a tremendous unmeasured impact? Well you know why don't you? It was the precious blood of Christ.

It has to do with that one chosen of God and precious because of who he is his sacrifice has all that value. He is the impeccable man it would be absolutely impossible for him to begin to accomplish one speck of all that we have spoken about and there's oceans beyond but he could not have accomplished one speck of what we have spoken about if he were anything less than absolutely wholly innocent. His was not innocent humanity that Adam had that had the capacity to choose good or evil.

His was not fallen humanity that Adam left for us that defaults to choosing evil. His was humanity that could not choose sin could only do what was pleasing to God. No that does not mean that his temptation into wilderness was some kind of just an arranged staged affair.

He faced sin. He felt the very results of sin in his own soul. He suffered being tempted.

It was impossible for him to fail. He demonstrated fully who he was in the face of every temptation that the evil one could possibly assail him with. He is impeccable and on that cross there was love.

The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. It was true when he was in the wilderness. It was true in the busy days of his service.

It was true when he hung upon that cross. There was nothing that Satan could bring to him in the depths of his soul's agony that would ever evoke the slightest thought of self-pity, self-will, self-seeking, absolutely sinless, perfect in the midst of infinite suffering. That one in his impeccability had never grown used to sin.

Okay, let me talk like an old man. I can remember when I was a boy everything wasn't perfect back then. But I can remember back in the good old days that there were things that would never have been mentioned in public.

Never been read that are the themes of popular entertainment. If you take one of those things that wouldn't have been mentioned 60 years ago and revolve a story around it, it is so intriguing and captivating. It's public entertainment! And none of us are as sensitive to it now, if you live long enough.

None of us are as sensitive to it now as we were 60 years ago to become used to sin. We become hardened. We defend ourselves against sin.

Isn't that really what Adam did as soon as he sinned? He put up the defense and he said, you can't touch me, it's Eve that's the problem. And he begins to just build walls between him and Eve to somehow or other shelter himself from the impact of sin. And we have learned a little bit.

We have learned how to shelter ourselves and live behind walls so there are some things that can't get to us. That's the essence of what sin is, taking protection from myself to myself rather than leaving protection to God. There was an impeccable man that never became used to sin.

He roamed as much at the grave of Lazarus on the eve almost of his crucifixion as he had on the throne eternal as he viewed the tragedy of human sin and death in this world. He never became hardened. He never somehow or other protected himself.

He was vulnerable to every attack of men. Now maybe it's because I'm stupid. But sometimes people say things against me and I miss them.

I don't have to accept the incitement that I tried. I mean, I just heard all that before. I don't want to bother with that.

I don't want to bother I don't want to bother I don't want to bother I don't want to bother I don't want I don't want to bother I don't want to bother I don't want to bother I don't want to bother I don't want I don't want to bother I don't want to bother to bother I don't want to bother to bother to bother I don't want I don't want to bother I don't want I don't want to bother I don't want to bother In every way, the extremity of the questions of the origins of that cause. Do you, okay, like if you were a, if you were a, if you were a, an accomplished artist, okay, much like myself, I couldn't draw my life depending on it, but supposing you're an accomplished artist, and you watch someone stand up and say, I am going to give you a demonstration of how art should be accomplished. I will draw for you now a unique drawing that will be worth millions in subsidies.

Awesome. And you get up, and you watch him get up there and flounder and fritter, that's an Irish word. Anyway, he's making such a mess of it.

He just doesn't have it. You've got all the expertise, and I'm not talking about pride, but you're watching him, and the more you watch him make a mess of the picture, the more something in you is saying, that's not the way art should be, that's not the, are you alright with me on that? There was a perfect judge that sat and watched a judge claim to be carrying out justice. I don't think we think very much about what that meant to the Lord Jesus.

The twisting, the iniquity, the wickedness, the perversity of holy men, so-called, leading the nation of Israel, bringing false witnesses, devising every way they could, injustly, to have him put to the death of the cross. There is that suffering under the sentencing of injustice. There's a suffering of shame.

You and I have no idea what it meant to him. The moment the highest created beings squeaked their first sound, it was full-formed words of intelligence and understanding, when they cried, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. They did not have a being before that, independent of their worship of God.

Their very reason for existing, these seraphim, these cherubim, these angels of every rank, they existed for one thing, to do the pleasure of him and to express his praise. And that's where he existed from the moment the angels were created. I think it must have been right at the very beginning, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And at that point, from that moment onward, he was the object of worship in his high exalted throne. And he squeaked to this world, and there were a few people that showed up at the manger and worshipped. And a few people that showed up at the home and brought their gifts and worshipped.

And there were brothers and sisters in the family that hated him, spoke against him. And the people in the town where he lived, it was a despised place. The people in the town where he lived spoke against him, and they just sat in the gate.

And it became the song of the drunkard. One day, the people that he had blessed with the feeding and miracles and raising of the dead, stood and watched him, crowned with thorns, scourged, wearing an old, faded, purple robe. Marks were spilt on his face, and they said, Away with, as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised.

He esteemed them not. Crucify! Crucify! Put one across with these. Let his name be defamed throughout all history.

And all that passed by with loud hair. Nobody apparently had anything to say to these two. All the shame was all directed toward one man, the Lord of all, wearing human spittle and shame.

Not just shame rarely, defaming his character as he hung and suffered on that cross. But the crossman nailed through his hands and through his feet. And all that was normally the dread process of dying, excruciating, that's a play on the word, excruciating pain mentality.

And all that I have told you should be overwhelming to all of us. Let us not dismiss it, but let us understand that it was eclipsed, totally eclipsed, by that one who was made sin for us. When the Lord laid on him the iniquity of Saul, I think one day, I think one day it would be wonderful just to be by his side, and maybe you'll do this and maybe I will, just look up into those loving eyes and say, Lord, tell me what Calvary meant.

Tell me what it meant to me to bear my sins. I have no idea. What it meant to that holy man made sin for us at Calvary.

His hatred of sin, his knowing fully the offensiveness of sin, his suffering all the consequences of sin, untouched by sin, and yet bearing all its consequence in his own body. I love the words of that hymn. It's not in the book, but we know it anyway.

When I think that God, his Son, not spirit, sent him to die, I scarce continue that on the cross my burden let me bear. He bled and died to take away my sin, and it is my soul, my Savior, God to me. How great thou art.

Where can we find such a thing as this? That God himself stoops to incarnation in order to bear the dread infinite consequence of sin, in agony upon a cross, sins committed by his arrogant creatures against him. How great thou art. How great thou art.

One more thing. I can tell you this pretty quickly. All that I've described to you is accomplished by Calvary.

All the fullness of the debt that he paid to Calvary, all the eternal consequence of that cross, that sacrifice, will never exhaust the full value of that Christ. There is much more. That's why we read about the fifth part being added there too.

That's why we went back to Genesis chapter 41 and chapter 47. God introduces, the spirit of God introduces the subject of this fifth part, this rightful claim of the sovereign. Joseph stands up for the honor of Pharaoh.

Now the priests will be excluded because they have a place of honor, but there is an honor that uniquely belongs to Pharaoh, and the honor of Pharaoh will be answered by the fifth part of all the crops that are ever to be raised in Egypt. The fifth part will go. Much more from all the rest will be going to the king because he is due.

And from Calvary there is a fifth part. And God will have a revenue of worship and glory and praise from Calvary that will express the value of who he really is. And forever and forever and forever there will be much more.

The death of Christ, the sacrifice, the death of his son. What a unique expression. The death of his son will never be exhausted.

You know what happens on the internet, if everybody is on a network and everybody at the same time tries to use the network, things slow down, might even crash. There would never be a time. If every sinner were to at one moment avail himself of the sufferings of the death of Christ, it would just be still much more.

All of the infinite value of what took place at Calvary. You and I have the privilege of worshiping. If we don't go home worshiping tonight, then I have to just admit to old Pharaoh, we think of one who suffered and died at Calvary and all of the accomplishments, all of the glory that was brought to God and all of the goodness that was brought to us and so much more.

Thank God for Calvary. Thank God for Christ. Thank God that we ever got in on such a tremendous grace.

All of you, thank you tonight from whole hearts, hearts that fail to appreciate all the value of the love of the Son, all about its finding him. All of us set it up today as a saver of rest from the sufferings of Calvary, from the fire that was his to endure upon that cross. We thank you tonight for the Lord Jesus and we thank you tonight for a place called Calvary.

We thank you that forever and forever there will be blessing and honor and glory and power ascribed to him that sits on the throne and unto the land forever and ever. We bless thee that when we see him, we will join a song we have never sung, but we will burst into instantaneous song and worship as we behold the Lamb and exclaim what will be our joy to exclaim forever, Thou art worthy. We bow in thy presence tonight to thank thee for him, for thy word, and we pray thy blessing upon thy people.

Lord, touch our hearts. Give us a deeper appreciation of the cross thee we humbly pray and give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.