Well, it's a great privilege for me to be with you
and to have these opportunities to speak to you,
and have happy conversations
with so many of you.
I've enjoyed my five weeks now in the U.S.A.
I have written faithfully back to my family
and told them all about every day.
And tonight you will be on record
and read about in London and in Wales.
I want to speak to you at this hour
about the work of Jesus Christ,
and I want to draw your attention
to Hebrews 1:3.
"When He had by Himself purged our sins,
He sat down at the right hand
of the Majesty on high."
Hebrews 1:3
That's the King James Version.
"When He had by Himself purged our sins,
He sat down at the right hand
of the Majesty on high."
Well, you realize who this is then.
I've spoken to you about that.
He's the One through whom God speaks to us.
"God has spoken through the prophets,
but now in these last days,
He speaks to us by His Son."
He speaks to you by creation.
The heavens declare His glory.
The firmament shows His handiwork.
Day and night there's speech coming,
and it's saying,
what a great and mighty God made this world.
It didn't come about by chance or accident.
It isn't just by luck -
atoms join together and spontaneously
out of nothing, something came.
Nothing comes from nothing.
But God made it.
And God speaks to us in it.
And God speaks to us through conscience -
the great monitor that God has put
in our hearts and minds
that rebukes us when we do what's wrong
and commend us when we do what's right.
That's the voice of God.
It has said to you:
"You know you can't go on in unbelief like this.
You ought to go and find a place
which worships Me, the living God."
And God has now spoken by His Son.
Wonderful words.
"When He was set, His disciples came unto Him,
and He opened His mouth and He taught them
saying, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn; they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek; they shall inhabit the earth.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,
they shall be filled.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers;
they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are you when men revile you
and persecute you and say all manner of evil
against you for my sake.
Rejoice, be exceeingly glad.
They treated the prophets like this before you.'"
William Shakespeare never said anything
as wonderful as those words.
But He did.
He spoke and He prayed
and we have a record of His prayers.
And He taught us how to pray like Him.
He's the God who made the universe then.
We are fascinated with origins.
We say that this One who was once tired
and sat on the edge of a well in Sychar
in Samaria,
and asked a woman for a drink of water,
He made the Gulf of Mexico.
He made Texas.
He made North and South America.
He made the world.
He was crucified.
He made the forests whence there sprung the tree
on which He hung.
He died upon a cross of wood,
yet made the hill on which it stood.
The vastness of space.
There's nothing in it that's contrary to
the power and glory of Christ.
He's relevant to the outdoors.
God put the first Adam in a garden,
and He put the last Adam in the indoors
in a carpenter shop.
He's the brightness of God's glory.
The most Godlike thing that God ever did
was to send His Son to the cross.
And when He hung there, He prayed,
"Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do."
There's the glory of God.
This is the one, then, this verse is talking about.
Then it tells us what He did.
"He purged our sins."
He came into the closest contact
with these people whose forefathers
God had chosen and set apart.
He lived among them.
He came and pitched His tent
in the valley of the shadow of darkness.
He came where men crucify other men.
He came where they throw a young woman at His feet
and are going to throw jagged boulders
into her face and ribs.
And He was there.
He came where the blasphemy,
where the gambling is
as they gamble for condemned men's clothes.
He came. He came there.
And He saw their sins.
And sins defile us.
Sins make us dirty.
And we need more than a little washing;
more than a little sprinkling.
We need purging.
I'd walk to church with my mother
on a Sunday night.
She'd notice I had tomato soup stains
around my mouth.
She'd say, "Spit on this hanky."
And then she'd scrub my face
so that I'd look presentable -
worthy to sit next to her.
We need more than a little spittle
to wash away our stains.
They stain our hearts.
Our inmost being -
the dispositional complex,
out of which are all the issues of our life.
There's dirt there. There's defilement there.
A man knocked on the door of my house,
and I went to answer.
I didn't recognize him.
He said, "I wonder, could you baptize me?"
So, he came in and I spoke to him.
He'd lived with a woman in Canada,
and she got pregnant.
And she'd had an abortion.
And he felt defiled.
And he thought this defilement, this dirt,
of what I've done needs to be washed away.
I said to him,
"baptism is an outward sign
of an inward change -
that God washes our hearts.
And you must come and listen to the gospel now."
And he started to attend church.
Because sins have made us dark and defiled -
spotted like the leper.
And we need to be washed.
And He's come. God has sent His Son
into the darkness.
He sent Him where sinners are in need.
And He's done something for our sins.
He says, you see, that's the phrase
the apostle uses
talking to these Jewish Christians.
"Ours..." - "Mine too" he says.
Mine need to be washed too.
He stands in solidarity with them.
In acknowledgement with them
that he too is a sinner
and needs to be cleansed.
He's not writing this letter to the Sanhedrin.
He's not writing this letter to Caiaphas and Annas
or to Pilate or to Herod.
He's writing to a certain constituency
when he says "our sins."
He's writing to Jews who have seen
the Man on the cross is the Messiah.
And He died there as the Lamb of God
that all the types and offerings
were pointing forward to the coming
into this world of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The God who had spoken through Isaiah and Elijah
and was now speaking to them
by His own Son.
So this letter is written to these people -
a certain constituency, a definite,
a particular constituency.
It's not a promiscuous letter.
It's not a letter to everybody.
It's a letter to these people.
To a church.
When he writes to the Corinthians,
he says, "Christ died for our sins."
When he writes to the Ephesians,
he says, "Christ loved the church
and gave Himself for the church."
When he writes to the Galatians,
he's very personal: "He loved me,
and He gave Himself for me," he says.
It's always so definite.
Not for those who died in Noah's flood,
but for our sins.
Our sins have a total answer
and that is found in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
He purged our sins.
He made an effective purgation of them.
He removed every spot, every stain,
every wrinkle, every such thing.
It's taken away.
You see the consequences of this then,
that my sins as if they never were.
It's magnificent.
It's an incredible concept.
They do not control
my relationship with God this morning.
They do not modify how it is
between me and God.
It is as if they weren't there.
There is no defilement.
It's all been removed.
He's taken our past sin.
He's taken our present sin.
He's taken our future sin.
And He's put it away.
He's provided purification for it.
And we are whiter than snow.
I'm not sure that my conscience can believe it.
I am not sure that there isn't in me
and in some of you an egotism
that wants to cling in some self-pity
to some remnants of our sin,
of our guilt,
so that we can feel sorry for ourselves.
If only I can let this truth
be the whole truth
about the way things are
between me and God this morning,
there's no barrier whatsoever,
there is no impediment whatsoever,
it is all forgiven.
It is all forgotten.
It's all blotted out.
It may even be that sometimes
you use this very belief
that one day I've got to go to purgatory.
And one day, I've got to pay for my sins.
And that leads to a little less commitment,
a little less resistance to sin.
A little less discipleship; a little less purity,
because, well, I've got to pay for them anyway.
Let me enjoy them, because I'll pay for them.
I'm prepared to pay for them.
So, let me take that illicit weekend
with that woman.
Let me lace my speech with blasphemies
and foul language.
Let me take another drink,
another drink, another drink.
Because I've got to pay for my drunkenness anyway.
I've got to go to purgatory.
I am saying they are all forgiven.
I am saying He's purged them all.
He's dealt with every molecule
of our guilt and shame.
Not one rogue molecule remains
that I have to purge myself.
Every spot imputed to Him.
There is absolutely nothing left.
Do you believe it?
The single determinant
of your relationship with God this morning
is what happened on that cross.
Nothing else matters.
Nothing else is relevant.
There are only two factors
in that equation:
What Christ did
and how God responded.
And the way you feel,
and the way you struggle,
and what you achieve and how you fail -
that is irrelevant.
The one thing relevant
is what the Lamb of God did on the cross.
And I don't for a moment believe
that the heart that knows that
will take advantage of it and go from it
to live a life without law,
because that cross, that grace,
won't let you.
I believe on the contrary
that a bad conscience
and a feeling that, well, I've got to pay for it anyway,
and God has something against me -
that serves as an unconscious grudge
against God that somehow justifies me
acting badly; being less perfect.
Permits a relapse here
and a shortcoming there.
And I want you to know in the depth
of your own being
that Jesus Christ made a good and decent job
of the work that God gave Him to do.
That He made a real purging for sin.
He's the brightness of God's glory.
He's God the Son. He's Jehovah Jesus.
He's the infinite, eternal One
who's taken human nature.
And He focused at the climax of His life
on Jerusalem and the task that lay before Him.
He was walking with destiny to Golgotha,
there to deal with sin -
the way it dirties us and defiles us
and corrupts us.
And God hates it.
The way it's created a gulf,
an alienation between ourselves and God.
He comes.
He comes who raises the dead.
He comes who speaks
and the winds and the waves obey Him.
He comes.
Jehovah Jesus.
There's one more thing He has to do
before He can say, "It is finished."
He must purge our sins.
He must take the defilement that comes -
every lapse;
every sin of omission.
He comes.
The guilt of every failure -
He must take them
into the judgment of the lake of fire.
He must take them
into the bottomless pit.
There to fall and fall and fall
further and further from us.
For all eternity.
A vaster and vaster separation of us and our sin.
And it leaves us de-sinned.
It leaves us guiltless.
As sinless as God is sinless.
As holy as the angels are holy.
Look, there is flowing a crimson tide.
Whiter than snow you may be today.
So you see the consequences
of what He has done.
That the dying of Jesus is purgatory.
Golgotha is the only purgatory
in this world or in the world to come.
There's no need of another purging.
There's nothing left to purge.
And there is no force, there is no power
except the death of Christ
that can deal with our sin.
And then when we see Him,
we shall be like Him.
He will present us faultless before Him in that day.
No fault.
Because all our sin has been dealt with.
Christ didn't do half a job on Calvary.
He didn't do 90% of a job on Calvary.
Jesus paid it all.
All to Him I owe.
Sin had left a fearful stain.
He washed it white as snow.
He purged our sin.
And then you see,
He did it by Himself we're told.
"When He had by Himself purged our sins..."
What was He doing?
Well, He was offering Himself
without spot to God.
He wasn't offering His body;
He wasn't offering His obedience only;
He wasn't offering His sufferings only;
He wasn't offering His blood only;
He wasn't offering His human nature only.
He was offering Himself.
The God-man was offering to God
the sacrificial obedience of the holy Lamb of God.
He was offering Himself to God.
He was the ransom price paid.
And we are free.
He was the propitiation.
The appeasement of the holy wrath of God
against all that contradicts what God is.
All that is cruel and tawdry
and mean and nasty.
And He dealt with that
and God's anger towards it.
He's the great satisfaction
rendered to God.
He's the price of our liberation.
There is nothing left undone
that any of you or me have to do.
He made a purging for us.
And He did it not by enabling you
to do something.
He did it not by inspiring you to choose.
He did it not by encouraging you to repentance.
He did it not by challenging you
to discipleship.
Not by exhorting you to faith.
Not by commanding you to live a holy life;
by pleading with you to have compassion
on your fellow men.
Because if my standing before God
depends on any of those things,
then I'm a lost man;
if it depends on my repentance
and my faith and my obedience
and my holy living.
I have no hope.
He did something absolutely by Himself.
And it was absolutely sufficient
for all that the Father had given to Him.
He purged away every speck
of their sin and guilt.
And He did it alone.
After His temptations,
angels came and ministered to Him.
After His baptism, the voice of God came
and spoke to Him.
After His transfiguration,
Moses and Elijah came and talked with Him.
But on the cross, He was there by Himself.
He was there alone.
No friend there.
Nobody catching His eye and saying,
in a glance,
"I love You and I know why You're doing this."
No disciples.
No family.
They all forsook Him and fled.
You were no good, were you?
You weren't there.
What contribution did you make on Golgotha to Jesus?
Your guilt and shame.
Nothing more than that.
He by Himself purged that guilt and shame.
So what could be more glorious?
What could be more liberating than that?
That there was a real and a total;
a comprehensive,
an infinite purging of sin?
Which He accomplished.
He did it by Himself.
And then we are told that He sat down
at the right hand
of the Majesty on high.
We know where Jesus is today.
He is at the right hand of God
and He is present here.
He's sitting next to you.
He's nudging you.
He is bearing testimony that what I say is true.
He's giving you this opportunity
to start having dealings with God the Son.
He is here and He's there.
And there He sits at the right hand of God.
He's a sitting Savior.
It means that He's finished the work.
Your husband comes home from work
and you say, "Supper's almost ready."
And he sits down. He picks up the paper.
He's sitting after the work is over for the day.
Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God.
Like God in Genesis 1 looked at creation.
The firmament and the seas,
and the light and the darkness,
and the sun and the moon and the stars,
and the birds and the animals and man
and God said, "It's good."
He looked at all creation.
He said, "It's very good."
So, today, God is looking
at what Jesus Christ did -
the work of redemption -
"Very good," He says.
"Sit at My right hand."
"Very good," God says.
So, I'm saying at this moment
God the Father and God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit look back
at the whole travail of redeeming grace
and the death of Christ - its great climax.
All the pain and the blood
the obedience,
and they are completely satisfied.
There's nothing more glorious
in heaven or earth today than that.
That Jesus Christ is completely pleased
with His own work.
He looks at it and He says,
"Very good."
And He sits down.
And He rests.
He sees the travail of His soul
and He is satisfied.
And God the Father looks at the obedience
of His Son. He is satisfied.
The Holy Spirit looks
at what Christ has done
and the Holy Spirit is satisfied.
The angels can't believe their eyes.
And all are filled with wonder, love, and praise.
God is filled with love and praise.
And the terrible thing is that everybody
is satisfied with it except you.
And you won't come.
Just as you are to Him
just as He is - seated at the right hand of God.
You won't come.
Alone.
Naked.
Nothing in my hands I bring.
You feel, well, I've got to make
a little contribution myself.
A little bit of Christian experience.
I've learned a few marks of grace.
A little growth; a little progress;
a little courage in testimony;
a little persecution in the office;
a little laughter from some of your mates;
a little pain in providence -
you won't come alone.
You won't come exposed.
You won't sit down
and survey Christ.
You won't rest in the work of Jesus.
Now, that's what God the Son did.
He said, "It is finished."
He was buried. He rose. He ascended.
And He sits at the right hand of God.
The Father is thrilled.
And the Spirit is delighted.
And all the angels glory in it.
And the spirits of just men made perfect -
any achievements, they take the achievements
and they throw them at His feet.
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
to receive power and riches
and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory
and blessing, they say.
That's all the say because they know
that Christ has made a complete purging.
There's nothing in the world
more glorious than this.
That's why the Bible is a magnificent group.
That's why we all have a Bible,
and that's why the climax of our worship
is to open the book and find the place
and preach the Word.
After we've sung to God,
He speaks to us in His Word.
And that's what you want.
I want to find a church
which will tell me about Jesus
and what He's done.
That's what I want.
I don't want men dressed up in religious costumes.
I don't want that.
I don't want a lot of entertainment
and humor and laughter.
I don't want that.
Give me Christ or else I die!
Do you live by the words that proceed
from the mouth of God?
If you are a Bible Christian this morning,
you sit before the cross of Christ;
before what Jesus did in purging your sins.
What do I want you to do?
What have I come from Wales here
to ask you to do?
I want you to do nothing.
I want you to do absolutely nothing.
I don't want you to get out of your seats.
I don't want you to come to the front.
Of course, if Jesus was here in the front,
I'd say come and meet Jesus.
But the word is nigh you.
It's in your mouth. It's in your hearing.
It's in your heart. It's in your understanding.
It's in your conscience.
The word of faith that we preach to you,
it's there.
You don't need to come to the front for that.
I don't want you to be baptized.
I don't want you to join the church.
I don't want you to make any resolutions
that from now one it's going to be different,
and you're going to be religious man
and you're going to be in church
every Sunday.
I don't want you to think
of what you're going to do in your future.
I want you to sit.
I want you to be absolutely still.
I don't want you to move.
I don't want you to plan.
I don't want you to decide.
I want you to look away from all of that
to look -
the head that once was crowned with thorns
is crowned with glory.
See Him at the right hand of God.
The Jesus of the Bible.
The Jesus who's with us now alive
who reigns in glory.
When the children of Israel were sinners
and were whinging and complaining
in the wilderness,
and God finally, as reluctantly as any father,
chastens His children.
He sent burning fiery serpents
into that wilderness and they bit them.
They were hiding in their tents
and in the piles of wood they were gathering
and they were bit.
And oh, they were in anguish
and they repented. They knew why.
They knew why He didn't deliver them
and they cried for mercy.
You remember what God told Moses?
To set up a great pole
and on the top, cast a brass serpent
that glittered in the sun.
And then what did He tell the people to do?
Did He tell them they had to walk on their knees up to it
and walk around it seven times
and kiss the pole?
No.
"Look," He said.
Set your eyes on that serpent.
Look. Look at it. Look and live.
My brother, live.
Look to Jesus Christ and live.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so the Son of Man was lifted up
that all who look, all who believe in Him,
all whose trust is focused in Him
should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
You've heard this morning what Jesus has done.
He's done it all by Himself.
You've heard of the glorious achievements
of the Son of God.
That He's purged our sins.
I've told you that God is absolutely satisfied with that.
Are you satisfied with what Jesus Christ has done?
Are you absolutely satisfied
with what Jesus Christ has done?
Are you completely satisfied
with what Jesus Christ has done?
Are you sitting and looking at Him?
And when you feel your sin and your guilt,
you look to Him and you say,
He took it away.
All my past sins are forgiven sins
because of what Jesus Christ has done.
And when Satan comes and reminds you
of how you hurt people you love
and people who love you,
who were dependent on you,
how terribly you treated them,
you say: but Christ dealt with that sin,
that guilt, that shame.
When you fall for the thousandth time
into sins of imagination and thought
and omission,
He dealt with that sin.
He took it in His own body on the cross.
Christ by Himself purged our sins.
Now, do you believe that?
Does everyone in this congregation believe that?
Everyone who believes in it is a Christian.
Not great Christians.
I'm not interested in great Christians.
I'm interested in mere believers.
Mere lookers at this Jesus.
It is settled once and for all.
You've left it all with Jesus long ago.
When a man is drowning,
and the life guard swims out to him,
the lift guard doesn't speak to him
and say to him,
"Now, there's the shore.
That's the direction.
That's where you've got to swim to."
He doesn't tell him that, does he?
He says, "Don't move now. Don't move.
Don't stop me from saving you."
And he puts his arm around him and he holds him
and he powerfully swims
and he saves the man.
Please, don't stop the Lord Jesus Christ
from saving you this morning
by thinking you've got to do something;
that you've got to add to what He's done.
You just look at Him.
Look at Him.
I want you to sit.
I don't want you to bat an eyelid.
I don't want you to breathe.
I want you to purge the word "do" from your mind.
I never want you to think about doing.
This has to be settled first.
Till to Jesus' work you cling,
by a simple faith,
doing is a deadly thing.
Doing ends in death.
Sit and consider what Christ did
and where He is now.
Be absolutely satisfied with that.
Let your conscience be satisfied with it.
Let your intellect be satisfied with it.
Let your mind;
let your past be satisfied
with what Jesus Christ has done.
If God is satisfied with it,
then Texas sinners can be satisfied with it.
Don't move a muscle.
Settle on this.
I the chief of sinners am,
but Jesus died for me.
And when God gives you a chance to speak,
all you can say is,
"I wish it wasn't me."
And when He gives me a chance to speak,
I will say, "Mercy. Mercy."
Mercy, mercy...
The world is full of religions.
And all those religions say, "Do this."
"Give your money."
"Say these prayers five times a day."
"Meditate."
"Keep a month in which you don't eat
during daylight hours."
"Don't eat pork."
"Do, do, do, do," they say.
That's their message.
"Do this."
Christ says, "Sit."
Look at what the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God has done.
Be satisfied with that.
That is salvation.
That is Christianity.
That is Life.
That is grace.
Look and live, my brother.
Neither is there salvation in any other.
There is no other name under heaven
given amongst men
whereby we must be saved.
Look unto Me and be saved
all the ends of the earth.
For I am God and there is none else.
Let the wicked forsake his way
and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
Let him look to Christ
who will pardon all who look to Him.
Don't move.
Speak like the dying thief who said:
Just don't forget me
when You're dealing with the Milky Way
and outer space.
Just remember me.
And He will abundantly pardon.
For He has by Himself purged our sins.
And He is seated at the right hand
of the Majesty on high.
There He ever lives to make intercession for us
and so He can save to the uttermost
those who come to God by Him.
By looking at Him.
And then when that is clear,
be steadfast and unmovable
and always abounding in the work of the Lord.
It's not in vain, your work in the Lord.
But first, you sit
and survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died.
Let's pray.
Lord our God, we beseech You,
help sinners to look now.
If there's a veil in front of their eyes still,
take it away.
If there's glaucoma spiritually;
if they can't see,
Oh Lord, show them
Jesus Christ the Son of God.
Help them, Lord. Draw them.
Draw them irresistibly.
Help them to face up to their sin and guilt
and the way it's stained them and marred them.
Oh, may they then look;
may they look to Jesus Christ.
May they set their eyes on Him
and look at Him
and be saved, God.
Oh, in Your mercy and in Your love
for San Antonio sinners
who repent and look to Jesus.
Give them the inner witness of the Holy Spirit
that they ever be satisfied
that they have a Savior
who is seated in glory;
who has gone to prepare a place for them
and who will take them to Himself
that where He is, there they will be
forever and ever.
Oh, happy home awaiting us.
Oh, blessed place.
Enable us in these last years of our lives
to live ever, only, all for Thee,
our God and Savior,
we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.