Jesus, the Perfect Sacrifice

Welcome to the Lord's Challenge with Joshua Daniel. The Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International is a ministry reaching people from all walks of life since 1935. After a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ at the age of 16, Joshua Daniel has been declaring a marvelous deliverance from sin which is freely given to all those who turn to the loving Savior.

Wherever this message has gone out, broken relationships have been restored, sickness healed, ill-gotten money returned, and thieves turned into givers. We now invite you to watch and receive the invaluable blessing that God has for you. You see, this idea that I have to be doing something for my own salvation, you know, I have to be giving so much money here, or I have to do these good works, or so on and so forth.

We forget that the offering for sin is once for all. What does the scripture say? The offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. It's a finished offering.

Now, there was a lot of controversy over this in the history of the church. And many people were killed and burnt and beaten, and even until very recently, if a man did not bow when the host is held up, oh, he would be set upon and beaten and thrown into prison in countries like Spain and other countries. But what does the Bible say? Some of these children of God, who staked all their trust in the cross of Jesus, they said, once and for all, the sacrifice has been made for me.

Once and for all. There is no repetition. No priest need to offer the body of Jesus Christ once again.

So, my dear friends, that became such a controversy. You know, when you depart from the word of God, you get very mixed up. And then you don't know what do you do.

You know, the press and the media, oh, they keep on raking filth and rubbish. I wish they would go and try to do something for the heathen and for the Middle Eastern nations. There you are not allowed to talk, you see.

If the sultan has a harem, well, that is his right. If the sultan demands, you know, as someone said to me, that his friend left Saudi Arabia in a great hurry, because as he was walking up the street with his wife, a limousine stopped. Someone came out and said, hey, I want this woman.

And so in order to save my wife, I said, come to the hotel and we'll talk about this. And before they could come, I vamoosed. I disappeared.

All right. If some of our media have no courage to talk about these things, but then they must focus on the priests. Priests in Ireland, priests in Germany, priests anywhere.

But this is an old thing. You know, when AIDS, the disease, surfaced, I was amazed. In the South Bend Tribune, the remark of some of those men in the monastery was, oh, this is nothing new to us.

This is a very old thing. It's been around with us for a long time. What? We all thought AIDS was a new disease that had sprung up all of a sudden and here were priests who said, no, it's been an old thing with us.

All right. Things like that, of course, are beaten into a great froth. But the fact that the heathen do not have any answer for sin.

All right, if you make Christianity a dead system and a bunch of rules, then, of course, freedom from sin disappears. It's all a bunch of rules. It's a system.

Well, my dear friends, the heathen do not know that there is a deliverer from sin and this nation has become so pagan and heathen so that people do not want to trust even their wives. Let's first make a prenuptial agreement. What is a prenuptial agreement? You get half the car and I get the other half.

What rubbish. And so on. No trust.

You know, I have acted on trust all my life. I've gone to the Muslim. I've gone to the heathen.

I've gone to people who said, Hey, look, my word is more than a document. You take me at my word. Every penny of yours will be safely in your possession.

And the heathen received those words. They trusted me. Till now, I have never come across anybody.

Only somebody over here in South Lyon when I was looking for a place, that poor agent, house agent. Oh, he had never heard of such a thing as that. But apart from that, no one in the world ever doubted those words.

When I told them about Jesus and how Jesus had transformed me. So friends, now a body has thou prepared. I want to come to that.

Tenth verse. By which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So the Bible tells us of a body which God has prepared.

A body. A body that is sinless. A body that is the offering for sin for once and for all.

You know, all of us have bodies. But what do we do with our bodies? You know friends, the harm that we do with our bodies. When we talk, when we walk, what are we doing with our bodies? Here is a body that Jesus has prepared willingly for the cross.

What have we prepared with our bodies? First Corinthians and the sixth chapter. Thirteenth verse. Meats for the belly and the belly for meats.

But God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sin, fornication. But for the Lord and the Lord for the body.

I can't understand how a whole nation can be so brainwashed as America is today. That this body is for sin. This body is to be thrown around in any bed.

I can't understand how a whole nation has had its thinking reversed. Put on a devastating trajectory. Here we are told that the body is for the Lord.

Now Jesus kept his body for the Lord. He kept his body for the cross. He was tempted at all points.

Like as we are tempted yet without sin. He was tempted like you and me. It's something which blows our minds.

But he kept his body. Now all of us have been given the gift of a body. A gift of a mind.

But what do we use it for? The Lord Jesus Christ brought a sinless body. And a mind which was pure and clean. A mind which could forgive on the cross.

Well you see if you and I go about saying Oh I'm not negative. I'm not doing anything evil. That's not enough.

We need a mind which will be entirely positive. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I have a mind which I must give to Jesus.

A body has thou prepared. Lo I come to do your will oh Lord. Now suppose you go to God and say Lord I have got a wonderful offering.

What a million dollars. Here you are. Here it is.

But don't you ask for my body. Don't you ask for my mind. You think God is going to accept your billion dollars? No.

What is that compared to your bodies and soul and mind? Nothing. See friends we have turned everything topsy-turvy. So we think oh we are doing very well because we have got a lot of money in our pockets.

My dear friends as a matter of fact those men who have a lot of money in their pockets are not doing very well at all. It's the man who says Lord here is my little. You take it.

You bless it like the five loaves and the two fishes. You multiply it. You know friends the cross of Jesus Christ brings to us completely different values.

A body has thou prepared. Now have we prepared for God? A body from our youth? A body that we have not sullied and dirtied with all manner of evil? Have we kept ourselves for Jesus? Now when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross here was an offering once and for all to cover your sins and my sins and the sins of all that turn to him in faith. So we are told that with this body we must serve the Lord.

1 Corinthians 6.20 For you are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. So you know friends glorifying God in your body means that your feet are at his disposal. Your mind is at his disposal.

Your plans are at his disposal. You know when you turn yourself at the cross and say you have purchased me. That's my whole being.

My body soul and spirit. Here I am. Take me.

Use me. So to come back to the 10th chapter of Hebrews. At the altar we see not just a phantom.

We see the body, the sinless body of Jesus sacrificed. 12th verse says for this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of God. From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are set apart, sanctified. By one sacrifice and one offering. What a perfect offering.

My dear friends when we come to the cross of Jesus. When we think of the cross during this time. Let us pray that our hearts may be opened up.

You know that we may understand what is this great love. That can love a wretch like me. And what is my response to this love.

Is it only a bargaining chip? You know Lord I am going to give you this so you give me that. No. You don't bargain at the cross.

At the cross you give yourself. You know it's no barter place. It's no place of merchandise, the cross.

We have made the church a place of merchandise. We have made our offerings a kind of deals that we make with God. No.

We are the recipients. Once for all God has set us apart by the cross. To be a sanctified people.

A people whose bodies are used for God. Whose mind is quickened by God. You know friends what a marvelous thing is the mind that you have.

It can fly off to the east and fly off to the west. It can fly off into this fantasy or that kind of reverie. And so on and so forth.

But think of that mind being subject to Jesus. What productivity will come out of that mind? You know wasn't it George Washington Carver? That great scientist who said God speaks to him in his lab. Out of the peanut he made so many wonderful products.

Yes. God has got a great purpose for us. Once and for all an offering has been made by which you and I are delivered.

From that old law. And God says a covenant, a new covenant. Sixteenth verse this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days said the Lord.

I will put my laws into your hearts. And in their minds will I write them. You know my dear friends our Christianity must become like breathing.

Just breathing. The word of God must just become like. You know your utterance.

Your thinking. The whole pattern of your mind should be anchored on the word of God. Because this is the new covenant.

I will put my laws into their hearts. And in their minds will I write them. And their sins and their iniquities.

I will remember no more. No more. What a savior.

What an altar. What a body. That overflows the altar.

Let us pray. Let us tell God. God write your laws upon my heart.

And let me breathe your spirit day in and day out. Let not my all nature be found overwhelming me. Lord I want to put upon the altar at the cross.

This body. This mind which you have given. I want to put it at the cross.

Holy Father here we are. Lord thou does not look at our pocket book. Thou does look at our willingness.

Behold I come to do your will oh Lord. Thank you Lord Jesus. We have found the real gold at the cross.

Never lose its value. The blood. Thy love.

The power of our savior. Will never lose its force. And currency.

We thank you Lord. Have mercy. And grant that in the midst of the political doom and gloom.

That many people are fury. Enable that there will be thy people who have anchored their faith in the cross. Who will never be shaken.

Though the world be removed and the mountains be cast into the sea. We ask this and praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

This program is brought to you by the Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International. A non-denominational missionary and prayer group working for revival around the globe. We invite every lay person to become God's ally in changing his or her corner of the world.

Please write. And if you have a problem or prayer request, please do let us know. You can email us at host at lefi.org. Or visit our website at lefi.org. Our mailing address is The Lord's Challenge.

P.O. Box 14. South Lyon, Michigan. 48178.

Until we meet again next week. May God bless you.