893. What Makes Grace So Amazing? Part 2

Welcome to The Daily Platform, our program features sermons from travel services Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, whether it's the general travel service for the whole student body or services for those in the ministerial class or seminary. Everyone at the school is blessed by the preaching of the word each day from the chapel platform today on The Daily Platform will hear the conclusion of an evangelistic message which was preached by BJ you president Steve headed to the student body at the beginning of the 2020 fall semester. The Scripture passage is Romans 324 and the title of his sermon is what makes Grace so amazing Christ is the one to desire freedom from our sin, and probably the greatest illustration of this in the Bible is the story in the Old Testament that every Jewish boy and girl learns my heart is the story of redemption of the Jewish people from the bondage of the king of Egypt named Pharaoh when God delivered them through a little laying on called the Passover. What's the story about God was going to deliver redeemed the Jewish people. They were slaves living under the control of Pharaoh and God sent to deliver name Moses and God said to Pharaoh, let my people go. He said no I'm not going to do it is so God began to sin through Moses. Various plagues to motivate him to turn and change his mind, but instead it hardened his heart and finally after nine plagues God said that their 10th win will come and he will let you go. He will release you from your slavery and that 10th plague was sending an angel of death in the home of everyone living in Egypt and taking the life of every firstborn son in every firstborn, firstborn, animal but God came to the Jewish people because they were God's people and he said there's going to be a way for you to be protected from the angel of death, and that is it is going to be through a lamb. Now that would defy logic. It did make sense.

But God said, take a lamb of the first year a little lamb one euro and bring it into your house for three days. Why three days number one for inspection to make sure that this lamb had no spot or blemish.

It was a clean lamb but and secondly I want you to bring it in your house, not only for inspection but for affection you say you can't bring a little lamb and a home and the children not make it a pat and give it a name, and love it. There's a reason why God did that because he said after three days I want you to take the lamb and I want you kill it, and I believe God wanted that lamb killed after three days to break the heart of everyone in that family of knowing that that lamb's blood was being spilled for them, because God said take the blood put it in a base in a bowl and I want to take the blood is smeared on the door posts of the house and here's my promise to you that if you put the blood on the door posts when I Passover that night. I'm going to see that that that blood instead of coming into your house and you experiencing death.

I'm going to pass over you and you're going to live and every child in every parent in every and in every uncle and every grandparent was sitting in that house knowing that night that they were delivered from the powerful angel of death because of the blood of that land that was on the doorpost and while they were in that house. What were they doing, they were taking that roasted lamb that cooked lamb and they were consuming the lamb and they were feeding upon the lamb and they were receiving the lamb because the lamb was there deliverance and the lamb became their life.

And when Jesus began his ministry and was baptized by John the Baptist at the Jordan River and John saw Jesus. What is he calling the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, who is the one that delivers us from God's judgment who has a big bet that is is the one who gives his blood to deliver us. It is God's land. It is Jesus we are redeemed through the blood of the Lamb. We are not redeemed with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And so Paul writes here. Romans three is explaining what defines human logic that we are saved by this lamb who went and died for us.

God is able to justify us, not because of what we do because of what Jesus did when he died is a spotless lamb on the cross. Go back tonight in your mind if you will 2000 years ago to the city of Jerusalem is another hot day in April it's Friday morning and death is in the air.

Why because the Romans are planning on exit 3 men had been chosen to be put to death through crucifixion. The crowd gathers outside the city walls of the place of execution called skull Hill or Golgotha's ride on a busy road a great place for people to see that you can't mess with the government of Caesar in get away with it word spreads like wildfire because one of the men being put to death was a rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth, the crucifixion begins at 9 o'clock sharp iron spikes driven through the hands of the feet and the feet of the criminals and now they are nailed to a tree. When you look at those three crosses the one in the middle the center crosses where Jesus was hanging and it looks like he's not gonna make it is not gonna survive. He's Artie been beaten severely. The skin is hanging off his back and tatters. His face is been beaten and bruised his body is covered in blood. It's it's just a horrible site to look at while he hangs on the cross he speaks some words he talks to the soldiers and he mutters he utters father forgive them for they know not what they do. He speaks to one of the thieves on the cross insisted that you'll be with me in paradise and then not far away was his mother and he says some words to his mother and then suddenly at noon after three hours. The Bible says darkness falls upon the holy become so quickly.

At one moment the sun is right overhead and the next moment it looks like it goes on vacation in the darkness is as dark as pitch black night for three long hours, Jesus hung on that cross and you could hear him crying from the cross. I thirst, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me, and then suddenly is the darkness it descended. Now it disappears at 3 o'clock in the afternoon at the hour of sacrifice in the temple, and all eyes are focused on the center cross, Jesus is there at the point of death, his strength is almost gone.

His struggle is nearly over and then suddenly he shall a reverberating statement he cries out. It is finished and then a few moments later he dies what did Jesus mean when he said it is finished with the means to complete something or to finish something successfully. It's what the mountain climber says when it reaches the top of Mount Everest and he says it's finished.

It's what you say when you turn in your final task your senior year of college and now your college careers concluded and you say it is finished is what you say when you make your last house payment and you say it's finished is the word that was used in Bible days when you paid your taxes is finished. It literally means paid in full.

Why did Jesus die.

Why did he have to die because God is too holy to let you into heaven with your sins and God is too loving not to do something about it. And so, through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

God accepted his death in his blood as the payment price for our sins. How can God justify a sinner. He does it through Jesus. He does it through his bloodshed through his sacrifice. And here is the favor of God in here is grace.

No matter how many sins you have piled up in your lifetime.

No matter how guilty you think you are or how bad you have been. No matter what you would done in your past, but still presently holds you in the present when you come to Jesus Christ by faith, not by works, not by anything. You do what is a humble and broken center. What will he do with your sins he will stamp them and follow it – remember the day I got saved.

The age of 19 years old, is a freshman in college I didn't grow up in a Christian home letting go to. I did have a Christian education. I was a public school kid. I didn't know anything about salvation until I was 17 years old is a junior in a public high school and a friend of mine shared the gospel with me and I didn't get saved right then because I didn't want to get say went off to college in Charleston, South Carolina. The school called the Citadel in their my freshman year I tried out for the varsity soccer team and I made the team that year, only two of us on the team that were freshman myself with a wall calendar.

My who became my best friend got a Maxie Birch who was a scholarship player little what I've known in the planning providence of God that he would broaden my life a born-again Bible believing Christian, who love the Lord and he would share the gospel with me he would tell me over and over Pettit.

You need to get saved and I knew any and all kinds of stuff going through my head. One moment I thought was too bad to get saved another moment.

I didn't know if I wanted to get say that is not my why I want my life to change the problem I had is a problem that all sinners have and that is we love our sins. Men loved darkness more than they love the light you you love your sin if you don't get born again you cannot die and go to hell. I will say it again if you don't get born again you gonna die and go to hell you know why because you love your sin and you love your darkness and you love your way. And if God did not work in my heart, and the Holy Spirit is not begin to change something on the inside of me. I would've never come to the and on Easter Sunday 19 Seip 75 coming back from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Listen to a preacher over the radio, preach the gospel and he preached the simple message of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and in that message and clicked it. Don't to make God love me and Jesus died for me and that his grace will forgive me and God will forgive me of all of my sins. I'm quite confident that I was probably worse at my age that anybody in this room I III don't say that proudly I don't say that I'm not trying to boast but I'm quite confident that I was probably worse than any body in this room and what grace, what makes Grace so amazing is that God will freely justify any center that comes to him. God does not sell you salvation.

He gives you salvation.

He's not offering salvation at eye half price deal.

He is offering salvation free of charge. He pays the full price.

And Jesus paid it all and you don't paying anything if you try to pay pay for your salvation. It means that you don't think he paid it all. He left no unfinished business and went, what he came to do. He did, and when you come to Jesus no matter what your sins are, no matter what your life is been like he will forgive you.

He will clinch you he wants you he will make you his child. He will adopt you into his family. He will deliver you from slavery and set you free.

He will take you who's an enemy and make you his very best friend.

He will take you who are condemn and he will declare you righteous. He will clean you up. He will make you suitable for the master and he will use your life for his glory.

Amazing grace. So what makes it so amazing it's it's what he accomplishes and then thirdly and finally, grace is amazing knowledge because of what it does and what it accomplishes in your life, but grace is amazing because of how it's received guy go back to Dahmer again. The guy that was unbelievably wicked. According to credible witnesses and some of them who are friends of mine actually got into the state prison in Wisconsin and were able to meet with him privately and lead him to Jesus Christ and as far as we know, he was beaten to death in prison. But as far as we know he had accepted Jesus Christ before he died and I'm actually expecting one day to see Dahmer in heaven Bellamy issue question. Is there anything about that that bothers you. Does it bother you that Dahmer would go to heaven. Let me say this, that it it's not that Dahmer's going to heaven bothers me at all. I'm not bothered by that may come out when Jesus died on the cross. The people that the people that he, Jesus prayed for the people he killed, and father forgive them. Jesus wanted the murderers to be be saved. When Jesus died on the cross. The man that he said today you be with me in paradise. Think I was a terrorist mazelike I got blowing people see it doesn't upset me that Dahmer could be in heaven.

Why, because this shows the greatness of God's grace, where sin abounds.

Grace abounds more God's grace is greater than any and every single sin.

There is no sin. That is worse that is beyond the grace of God. So doesn't that bother me at all for God saves the worst of sinners. In fact, is when you read about the life of Jesus. What did he do, he did meet with the Twain people he ate with the dirty people.

He ate with the sinners that was criticized for so doesn't bother me that a guy like Dahmer can go to heaven. The answer is no.

But there is something that does bother me, and what bothers me is that there are many people who lived who have lived far better lives than Jeffrey Dahmer who are not going to get in the kingdom of God.

They didn't do what he did that and kill people that in the people there were not sodomites. It almost doesn't sound fair, does it but actually for all of us.

There is a problem in the way every single one of us in this building think it's the way we think about ourselves because all of us assume or let me say this, all of us could naturally assume that actually in God's eyes we are better than Dahmer because we didn't do what he did.

Let me illustrate this way. If I could take Jeffrey Dahmer to the deepest canyon in the United States. The Grand Canyon out in Arizona and if I took them there and I took him down to the bottom. The Grand Canyon is 1 mile down.

If you've ever been there.

You know exactly what it looks like I missed we the bottom there's a Colorado River. Listen we take Dahmer and put them all away down at the bottom standing next to the Colorado River and I'm standing on the top of that of the South rim of the Grand Canyon 1 mile now from my perspective, looking down at him, whose higher all obviously I am and I can look down and seeing standing there and I can say he's a lowlife and in comparison.

There's a great deal of difference between he and I from my perspective, but if I could take somebody and put them on the moon and they look down on planet Earth, and they can see me and they can see Dahmer what's the difference in the distance from that perspective, the answer is there is no difference. So let's even go higher than the moon, let's go to the throne of God, which is beyond the universe and looked down and what is God's perspective when he looks at the two of us. He tells us exactly what is perspectivism look at Romans three. At the end of verse 22, he says, for there is no difference for all sin and come short of the glory of God. There is no difference when we look at the stars at night.

Do they not look all like they're very close to each other.

Question, are they really that close to each other know their light years apart standing in comparison with Dahmer. I don't think I've done the wicked things he's done he's done, but standing before God. We are all sinners.

I want to say it to everyone of you every one of you deserve to die for your sins.

And I know that because you're going to die for your sins that the day comes. One day you hear they are about steep entity die you what your answer should be, well, he deserved it. He deserved it, and that the wages of sin is that you are, you deserve it. We deserve judgment, but we can receive gray and what makes it grace so amazing is how it is received and how do I receive the grace of God Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a been there numbers of times is built over the traditional spot where Jesus was born to get inside. You have to go to a very small entranceway literally got it you got a really dip down if you're looking at it there it is, and you can't really see it little clearly but right underneath that that that ledge. There's actually a little cushion for people that hit their heads. There now.

The entrance was deliberately made a number of centuries ago because what happened is the local bigshot she used to ride their horses into the sanctuary to the big Gothic doors. The priest feeling that this was inappropriate. Bricked up the big entrance and they made us the smaller entrance in this course the big shots to dismount off of their horses before coming into God's house and what they were saying was this very simply, if you want to go to heaven. You have to get off your high horse.

God resisted the proud but he giveth grace to the humble. Probably the best illustration in the New Testament. This is in Luke 18 when two men go to the house of God to pray one's a religious man and one is a wicked man. One is called the Pharisee the others called the publican the Pharisee stands up a very religious man and he confesses to God how good he was and how much he depended on himself and he pray this prayer God. I thank thee that I'm not like other men.

I'm not an extortion or I'm not unjust on not. I don't commit adultery. I'm not even like this publican dude over year I fast twice in the week I get prize of all that I possess. He tried to impress God with his religion. So what did the publican do what the Bible says that he confessed to God how bad he was.

The Scripture says that he would not lift up so much his eyes under heaven. He was so ashamed of his life. He smote upon his breast. He beat his chest with his best.

He said these words, God be merciful to me a sinner that word merciful means literally means God, I need a propitiation I need a sacrifice. God, I know that your wrath is coming upon me. Oh God provide for me a sacrifice so that I could be saying Jesus concluded the story and he said I tell you, this man, this man, this publican went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone that exalts himself shall be based and he that humbles himself shall be exalted, how do you receive the grace of God, you humble yourself. Jesus used another word he called repent, repent is a change of your mind about yourself about your sin about your God. Have you ever read tinted except you repent, you shall Paris rip parent and believe the good news the gospel and the Bible says, you shall enter the kingdom of God.

So I beg you tonight. Have you repented have you believe. Have you received for. If you don't you will not enter the kingdom of God.

The greatest fear I have for you as a student of Bob Jones University is to sit here day in and day out here the word of God and instead of your heart being tender in your heart being fertile and the seed sown grows and there's good fruit coming out of it. You harden your heart you hear and you harden and then you leave, you go out you walk away from God is an apostate is an unbeliever so God's grace comes to us in God's grace is enough to save us. If you've never received the grace of God, would you do that tonight you can accept Jesus as your Savior tonight. Just like I prayed and asked the Lord to come into my heart is not the greatness of your prayer that saves you is not even the greatness of your faith is the greatness of your Savior and if you will come to him and childlike simple faith and say God save me, and humble yourself. Maybe some of you can have the humble yourself because everybody thought you're saved and you know you not, you're going to have to humble yourself, you have to take off the mask of respectability and humble yourself and say God save me but every body who humbles themselves and comes to him. He will in no wise no way will he ever cast you out. You been listening to a sermon by Dr. Steve Pettit preached at an evangelistic meeting at the beginning of the 2020 fall semester by listening friend.

Can I ask you a question. Have you received the crucified resurrected Jesus as your own personal savior.

No doubt God is speaking to your heart.

There's a knock on the door of your heart and he's asking to come in. Would you personally individually right now.

Call upon the name of the Lord ask Jesus to be your Savior, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let me urge you to do that right now.

May God bless you.

We hope you'll join us again tomorrow at the same time as we study God's word together on The Daily Platform