The Only Basis For Full Salvation

Tonight I’m going to speak about what Jesus obtained for us by His death on the cross. I’d like to turn to Galatians chapter 3. I’m going to read the first five verses. These verses have impacted me so deeply that I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to share with you all that they’ve come to mean to me.

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?”

Now if you have the NIV or the NASB, some parts of that verse are not there, but it makes no real difference to the actual scent. The reason being that there are different texts on which the translations are based. Some use one text, some use another. I hope that doesn’t confuse you. Let me read it again. This time I’ll read it as it is in the modern versions, leaving out the pieces they leave out.

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified?
This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—”

Now if you analyze those verses, those Christians in Galatia had come to know the Lord Jesus, they had received the Holy Spirit and God had worked miracles amongst them. They were on at least as high a level of experience as most of us here tonight, and yet Paul reprimands them with extremely forceful language. And he makes an amazing statement. I don’t know whether you can receive it. He says, ‘You’ve been bewitched.’ Now that’s not a metaphor. The original Greek word means bewitched.

Now it may astonish you but I’ve come to the conclusion that a large part of the American church is bewitched in amazing proportion. Now what is the effect of witchcraft? This is where I come to my point. It’s all contained in that first verse. How did Paul know they were bewitched? Because they’d lost the vision of Jesus Christ crucified. What had the sinister power of witchcraft done among them? It had obscured the cross. And I suggest to you that that’s Satan’s primary objective in the church is to obscure the cross and what was accomplished by it, because through the cross we have total victory over sin, over Satan, over his kingdom. Through the cross he’s defeated. But if we ever lose the sight and the understanding of what was accomplished on the cross, then he regains his position of mastery over us. That’s the critical issue.

So I’m going to try to speak on what was accomplished by the cross, and it will be interesting to see what results. It’s been germinating in my heart for several months, and without going into details it has arisen out of experiences that I myself have passed through. I don’t know whether you can believe it, but preachers sometimes make mistakes. My aim in the Christian life is never to make the same mistake twice. I believe God is very indulgent and merciful the first time we make the mistake. He’ll straighten us out, correct us, He’ll show us where we’ve gone astray. I don’t want to go through that process twice. So I have made mistakes out of which I have tried to learn and I’m going to try to share with you the lessons which, I believe, have come to me.

So tonight we’re going to speak about the cross as the only basis and the all-sufficient basis for every good thing that God offers us. It has no other basis. Apart from the cross God has nothing to offer us but condemnation and punishment, and final death. The only thing that stands between us and those awful prospects is the cross.

I don’t know whether you noticed, but in the hymns of the last century and the century before, the cross was a regular theme. There’s a lot of beautiful songs coming out in the Charismatic movement, but hardly any of them deal with the cross, which to my way of thinking pinpoints the great danger that faces the Charismatic movement, which is being bewitched. Now that may shock you, but if it does shock you, you blame Paul and not me. It’s very remarkable. If you study Paul’s epistles, almost every epistle he began, he began by thanking God for the grace given to the people he was writing to. He wrote two epistles to the Corinthians. Now there were all sorts of problems in the Corinthian church. There was drunkenness at the Lord’s Supper, there was a man living with his father’s wife, there was all sorts of carnality. But Paul spent several verses thanking God for His grace to the Corinthians, and he didn’t reprove them for speaking in tongues, incidentally.

But when Paul wrote to the Galatians he was so upset that he didn’t have one word of thanks. He just said, ‘I’m marvel that you’re so soon turned away from the grace of God into another gospel.’ What was the problem? It wasn’t drunkenness, it was immorality—they’d lost the sight of the cross, and to Paul’s thinking that was much more critical than some sins of the flesh.

I’d like to read by way of introduction to this night’s theme, Hebrews chapter 10, verses 11 through 14. Hebrews 10:11-14. This is a comparison and a contrast between the ministry of the Levitical priests in the Old Testament and the ministry of Jesus as the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek in the New Testament, and one of the points in it is a contrast between standing and sitting, which is what the author uses to bring out his point. Now if you read the record of the Old Testament sacrifices, those priests never sat down. They always remained standing and the writer points out why, because their job was never finished. They never could offer one sacrifice that covered everything forever. But Jesus, when He had completed His sacrifice, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Why did He sit down? Because He was never going to have to do it again. And the language is very powerful. Let me just read, beginning in verse 11 of Hebrews 10.

“And every priest stands [notice stands and he’s talking about the Levitical priests] ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But this Man [that’s Jesus], after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, [notice the contrast. He sat down. And notice the language—He offered one sacrifice for sins forever—one forever.]
from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool.
[Now this is a tremendously powerful verse, verse 14.] For by one sacrifice He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”

Notice again the emphasis—one sacrifice forever perfected. What emphasis on the total all sufficiency of that one sacrifice. By one sacrifice He has perfected forever those that are being sanctified. All right now notice the tenses. The Greek language in which the New Testament’s come to us is very, very sensitive about tenses—tenses being the forms of verbs which indicate the time. So the first part is what we call a perfect tense—something that is done and it never has to be done again. It’s complete. The second part is what we call a continuing present tense—that’s something that’s going on all the time. So the sacrifice of Jesus is perfect. It covers every need for every human being in every area of his personality, spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, material for time and for eternity. But our appropriation of it is progressive. We are being sanctified. We’re being drawn closer and closer to God. We’re appropriating more and more of the benefits of the sacrifice. See how balanced the New Testament is. As far as what Jesus concerned, it’s all done, but for us it’s progressive. And none of us has arrived. Are you convinced of that? The moment you think you’ve arrived you’re in trouble.

Now I’d like to share with you a little story. Ruth and I and five other people were in Pakistan the beginning of September last year, to preach there. Pakistan is ninety-eight percent Moslem, and it’s a very tough, violent, and, in many ways, wicked country. The Lord opened the door through a little handful of Christians. The Christians are the most despised people in the nation. Basically every Pakistani who is a Moslem thinks about Christians as sweepers—sweepers being those who clean latrines and do jobs like that which Moslems won’t do. And their mental picture of a Christian is a sweeper in poverty, in humiliation, in degradation. Well anyhow the Lord opened the door.

The first night of ministry we were in Karachi which is the biggest city—about eight million people. I said to the Pakistani leader who was responsible, I said, ‘Where are we going to hold the meeting?’ He said, ‘In our church.’

Well I’d seen enough by that time to wonder what kind of a church they had, because if it was anything like the homes they had, it wasn’t much. I said, ‘How many people does your church hold?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘about three hundred.’ And I thought he was exaggerating. So I said, ‘How many people do you expect to be there?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘maybe six hundred.’ Well I didn’t see how that was going to work out.

So we set out and as usual we were an hour late, which is standard Pakistani time. Well we eventually arrived where the church was supposed to be. We never saw the church. When we got to the area there was an intersection—not a paved road just dust roads, that was absolutely jammed with people. There must have been at least three thousand people. You couldn’t move in any direction. There was no possibility of traffic circulating at all, and there was really nobody to bother about that. The police were not in evidence, which was probably a good thing.

So, since I was the leader of the party I felt I ought to be the one that kicked off and preached first. Well I was standing behind a pulpit that wasn’t nearly as smart as this, and the nearest people to me were just about where that plant is, and the ground was just solid people in every direction. I mean nobody could move. There were not aisles, there was nothing.

So I thought, ‘Dear God, what am I to do for these people?’ Eighty percent illiterate, ninety-eight percent Moslems. So I said to them this and I’m saying this because though it’s a different context, it’s just a true for you. And you have to speak in simple language to people like that. So I said, ‘Now listen. If you were all hungry and I was a rich man and I owned an orange grove, there are two things I could do for you. I could go to my grove and take an orange and give it to you. And that would temporarily stay your hunger, but you’d soon be hungry again. Or I could take you to my orange grove and say help yourself. Now what I’m going to do for you tonight is take you to the orchard. I’m going to take you to the place where, if you can grasp the message, you can help yourself. And the orchard has only one doorway, and it’s the cross. If you want to get into the orchard you have to come to the cross.

By one sacrifice He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. He did it all in one sacrifice. He didn’t have to do it a number of different times. He didn’t have to offer a number of different sacrifices. One sacrifice covered every need of every human being in every area of his life for time and for eternity. And that’s true for every one of you here tonight. What Jesus has done can meet every single need that will ever arise in your life. That’s the orchard. There’s no limit to the number of oranges you can pick.’

Now God showed me this basic truth, oh, a good many years ago now, but it’s one that’s been continually increasing in me. And I’m going to share to you in a very simple way. Preaching in the Third World and having been a teacher of Africans for five years, I’ve learned to think simple. My personal conviction is the simplest truths are the most profound. I am never interested in being complicated. And if at the end of one of my messages someone comes up to me and says, ‘Brother Prince, that was a deep message.’ I say to myself, Lord what did I do wrong. I have no desire to be deep. I want to be simple. I work on it. If I can’t say it simply the first time, I work on it until I can. I have come to believe that if I can’t say it simply, it’s because I don’t understand it clearly.

There’s a German saying—I don’t know how many of you understand German ________________ —‘What is said in an unclear way is thought in an unclear way.’ I’m telling you that because if you’re used to intellectual sermons or long words, you may miss what I’m telling you. Because what I have to say is amazingly simple. The essence of what took place when Jesus died on the cross is this—there was a divinely ordained exchange. It proceeded out of the love and grace of God. And let me tell you, the Bible never offered any explanation for God’s love or for God’s grace. They are unexplainable. You cannot earn His love and you cannot earn His grace. And the people who try to earn God’s grace are the people who miss it. The only way you can receive it is by faith, by believing. Not believing plus, but believing.

This is the nature of the exchange. When Jesus hung on the cross, God visited on Him all the evil that was due to the rebellion and disobedience of a sin-cursed race, that in return all the good that was due to the perfect obedience of Jesus might be made available to us. I think I need to say that again, because I am putting in your hand the key. To use another metaphor it’s the key to God’s storehouse and it’s shaped like a cross. And with that key in your hand you can march into the storehouse and help yourself. When Jesus died on the cross, God visited on Him all the evil that was due to the total disobedience of the whole fallen human race, that in return all the good due to the perfect obedience of Jesus might be made available to us.

More simply, God visited the evil on Jesus that the good might be made available to us. I think in order to impress that on us we need to say that. You say it after me. God visited the evil on Jesus God visited the evil on Jesus that the good might be made available to us that the good might be made available to us. Now I’m going to just go through a number of different aspects of this truth tonight. But I’m not going to give you ever aspect—it’s almost limitless.

I think I need to share another experience with. I had intended just to get into teaching, but it seems the Lord is showing me I need to share with you one of the key experiences of my life. I met the Lord Jesus Christ in an Army barrack room in the British Army in 1941. From that day to this I have never doubted two things—that Jesus is alive and the Bible is true.

Shortly after that the British Army sent my unit overseas to the Middle East and I spent the next three years in the deserts of North Africa—Egypt, Libya and the Sudan. While in the desert I became sick with a condition of the skin which was diagnosed by a variety of different names and was eventually called chronic eczema and I spent one year on end in British Military Hospitals in Egypt. In those days, in that climate, and with the medication available, they really had no answer for that type of eczema. The matter of fact, even here in the United States today there is eczema that they have no cure for. And if you want the story, it’s not totally told, but it’s in the little booklet God’s Medicine Bottle which is out there somewhere I hope.

Well I was saved, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, I knew God and as I lay there week after week and month after month in bed, I kept saying to myself, ‘I know God would heal me if I had faith.’ The next thing I would say to myself, ‘But I don’t have faith.’ And when I said that I was in what John Bunyan calls the Slough of Despond, and I spent several months there. And then in that dark valley a piercing ray of light came to me and it came from Romans 10:17, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. What I grasped hold of were the two words faith cometh. If you don’t have it you can get it. Let me say that to everybody here tonight. If you don’t have it you can get it. You don’t need to go on without it.

How does it come? By hearing. So I said to myself, ‘I am going to listen to what God says in His word.’ I’m a kind of analytical type so I said to myself I’ll read the whole Bible through. I have plenty of time. I armed myself with a blue pencil and I said I’ll underline in blue all through the Bible everything that has to do with healing, health, physical strength and long life. It took me maybe three or four months. You know what I had at the end? A blue Bible. But I still wasn’t healed. And I won’t go into all my struggles, but I spent months struggling for faith, struggling to believe what I was reading. But eventually I got anchored in Proverbs chapter 4 verses 20 through 22.

Well, before I tell you that, let me tell you this. While I was there in the hospital, in this valley, a most unusual person—a Brigadier from the Salvation Army, but she was a lady Brigadier. She was in Cairo. I was in the Suez Canal. She commandeered a car, she found a British soldier to drive it, a Christian, she got her American co-worker with her who was from the state of Oklahoma a young woman, and they took this fifty mile journey to visit this soldier in hospital. She marched into the ward with her ribbons flying, her bonnet at appropriate angle, and her skirts down to her ankles, and she over-awed the nurse. The nurse had never seen anything quite like her before.

She got permission for me to get up out of the bed and go sit in this little car on the hospital compound to pray. So I found myself in this very small four-seater car sitting in the back seat with the young American lady beside me, the British driver in the driver’s seat, and the Salvation Army lady Brigadier beside him. Now I wasn’t, you know I was baptized in the Spirit but I wasn’t altogether used to that such people do in those days. I’m not sure that I am now. And so they said let’s pray. We hadn’t been praying long when this young lady beside me began to speak in a tongue, very fluent, very anointed, very beautiful. When she finished she gave what I immediately understood as the interpretation.

Now you hear me and I’m much less British than I used to be forty years ago, and she was from the state of Oklahoma. I’m not going to say anything about the state of Oklahoma, but you can picture there was a wide difference in our accents and out cultural background. But when she gave this interpretation, she spoke the most beautiful British English. Now I had been a student of Elizabethan English and she spoke the most beautiful English. I knew it was the most humbling thing, but God was talking to me, and He was giving me the answer to my problems. And I cannot give you the whole interpretation, but these words I have never forgotten. ‘Consider the work of Calvary—a perfect work, perfect in every respect, perfect in every aspect.’ That’s what I got and I understood that God had given me the answer to my problem. I understood that it related to what happened when Jesus died on the cross, the work of Calvary. And I understood that God was telling me that it was perfect in every respect, it covered every human need. It was perfect in every aspect; it didn’t matter from what point of view you viewed it. It was perfect. Now having been a student and a teacher of Greek on University level, my mind immediately went to the statement of Jesus on the cross just before He died, ‘It is finished,’ which was very appropriate to remember this particular day. Now I knew the original Greek which is one word tetelestai. It’s in the tense we were talking about, the perfect tense for something that’s done, that’s finished; it never has to be done again, nothing to be touched. And it comes from the save verb that is translated He has perfected forever those who have been sanctified. It’s the same verb. And you could best represent it by it is perfectly perfect, or it is completely complete. So when this dear sister said ‘A perfect work. Perfect in every respect, perfect in every aspect,’ I said to myself that’s the Holy Spirit’s commentary on tetelestai. It is finished.

Now I didn’t mention something else that took place. While this sister was speaking in tongues and interpreting, she started to shake all over. Then I started to shake, then everybody in the car started to shake, and then the whole car started to shake. It was stationery. The engine was not running, but it was vibrating and rattling as if it was going about fifty miles an hour on a rough road.

Well, I knew God was doing all this for my benefit. Now that was in 1942 or 43. I’ve never forgotten that admonition—consider the work of Calvary, a perfect work. Perfect in every respect, perfect in every aspect. And I have followed that admonition for more than forty years. What I’m sharing with you tonight, in a sense, is the outcome of what God spoke to me then.

Now when I got out of that car I was just as sick as when I got in it, but I knew where the orchard was. And I decided I was going to find the orchard and explore the orchard. And really that’s been the thrust of my ministry every since. What I’m sharing with you now very briefly and very condensed is the result of years of study and prayer and experience.

Well I was telling you that in the course of studying the Bible with this in mind and remembering that faith comes by hearing the word of God, I got to Proverbs chapter 4 verses 20 through 22, and that was what got me out of hospital. So you might as well know it because it can do just as much for you as it did for me. This is what it says in the King James Version. It’s addressed to a child of God. It’s not addressed to an unbeliever. It’s God speaking to every one of His children.

“My son, attend to my words; Incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Let them not depart from thine eyes; Keep them in the midst of thine heart;
For they are life to those that find them, And health to all their flesh.”

Now if you have health in all your flesh you cannot be sick. Is that right? Health and sickness are mutually opposite, so if your whole physical body is full of health there is no room for sickness. Well, I was a logician before I became a preacher. I saw that immediately. I thought that’s it. Then I had a Bible with alternative translations in the margin, and where it said health the alternative translation was medicine. I said that’s it. That’s what I need.

Well I had probably been eight months in hospital at that time and the doctors had done all they could for me. So I said from now on the only medicine I’m going to take for this sickness is words of God. So I said to myself I’m going to take God’s word as my medicine. The Lord spoke to inaudibly, but very clearly to my mind and He said, ‘Wait a minute. When the doctor gives a person medicine, the directions for taking it are on the bottle. And if you don’t take it according to directions, the doctor doesn’t guarantee a cure.’ He said, ‘This, these verses, are My medicine bottle and the directions are on the bottle. You’d better look at them.’ So I did, and I found there were four directions and these are the directions for taking God’s word as your medicine. Attend to My words, Incline thine ear unto My sayings, Let them not depart from thine eyes, Keep them in the midst of thine heart. That’s four practical directions.

I’m not going to preach on this tonight, it may surprise you. In fact, I don’t know how I got here. I’m doing my best to get out of here quickly. I know because of the way the Holy Spirit deals, that there’s somebody here tonight that needs this, probably much more than one. Okay so the first direction is attend. Give God’s word your undivided attention. The next one is incline thine ear, bow down thine ear. Well now your body is so constructed you cannot bow down your ear without bowing down your head. You try and see if you can do it. What does the inclined head mean? Humility, teachability. As I read the Bible I had my Anglican background with me, and my Anglican background—this is not a criticism of Anglicanism—but I had been left with the impression after nearly twenty years of attending the Anglican church that if you were going to be a Christian you’d better expect to be poor and miserable. And that was one reason I decided not to be a Christian. I couldn’t see that it was worth it. So every time I read these glorious promises of provision and prosperity and healing and strength and long life, I kept telling myself there must be some mistake. It couldn’t be like that. God couldn’t be saying that.

Well, I was in the middle of one of these little dialogs with myself, the Lord spoke to me again. He said, ‘Tell me, who is the teacher and who is the pupil?’ So I said, ‘Lord, You’re the teacher and I’m the pupil.’ And He said, ‘Would you mind letter Me teach you?’ And see I realized I was not listening. I had my own preconceptions. I thought I knew what God ought to have said and if it didn’t come out that way I couldn’t hear it. I had to lay down a whole lot of preconceptions and traditions in order to be able to receive the word of God. Then it says let them not depart from thine eyes. Keep your eyes focused on the promises of God’s word. Keep them in the midst of thine heart. The next verse of Proverbs, verse 23 or chapter 4 says,

“Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it are the issues of life.”

Okay. So that’s a tremendous statement. Everything in your life is determined by what’s in your heart. Whether you succeed or fail, it doesn’t depend on circumstances. It depends on what you have in your heart. Out of the heart are the issues of life. If you get the right thing in your heart you are unsinkable. No circumstances can defeat you. And if you have the wrong thing in your heart there is no way you can succeed.

How do you get them into your heart? By the ear gate and the eye gate. Attend, incline you ear, focus your eyes—those of you who are teachers you will know. Primary school teaching—two main gates to the child’s attention—the ear gate and the eye gate. Use them both. God said about three thousand years before the educational psychologists thought of it.

Okay, but why I related that story—well I need to tell you the end of the story. After that I didn’t take any more medication. I’m not against for medication. I thank God for doctors and if I need medication today I’ll take it, but in this situation I’d had all the medication they had to offer, so I thought why confuse the issues. If God is going to do it let’s let Him get the glory. So I refused all further medicine. I can’t go into details, and I took God’s word as my medicine.

Now I was a medical orderly or a hospital attendant, so I said to myself how do people take medicine. The answer the usual—three times daily after meals. So that’s how I took my medicine. After each main meal I went off by myself, opened my Bible, bowed my head and said, ‘Lord Jesus, You have promised that these words will be medicine to all my health and I’m taking them as my medicine now.’ I didn’t get any miracle, but within about three months I was totally and permanently healed and that was now over forty years ago. I have to say to the glory of God, I think taking God’s word as my medicine all that time ago gave me a kind of injection of divine life which is doing me good today.

I just want to recommend the medicine. Many of you will come to the healing service Sunday night. Not all of you will be here. God has got various ways of healing people, and you can’t choose what way you’ll be healed. You have to find out what way God wants it. Sometimes God has a minister in the body through whom you’ll be healed. If you don’t come to that meeting you may not get healed. In the other hand He may choose to heal you through prayer, through the word, through many different ways, or even through medication. You have to find the way. You cannot dictate to God.

All right now we’re coming back to the statement consider the work of Calvary. A perfect work, perfect in every respect, perfect in every aspect. That’s what I’m telling you that every need in your life is covered by what Jesus did on the cross. Don’t get distracted. A friend of mine whose been a missionary in the Far East the other day to me. He said, ‘The church has got so many items in its shop window today that people hardly notice the cross. They’ve got prosperity, healing, power, knowledge.’ They’re all there but they’re all contingent on the cross. Apart from the cross they’re not yours. The only basis on which you can receive any good thing from God whatever is the cross.

This is another testimony of the glory of God. Fifteen years ago I couldn’t read in the pulpit without my glasses. Today my eyesight has become so much stronger that I generally forget even to reach for my glasses. That’s all due to one thing you know that? The cross. There is no other source. It’s the orchard. The oranges are juicy, they’re delicious, and they’re abundant. You’ll never exhaust the supply of that orchard.

All right let’s turn to Isaiah 53 verses 4, 5, and 6. Now this is the prophetic preview through Isaiah of what was to be accomplished by the death of Jesus on the cross seven centuries later. All right.

“Surely He has borne our griefs [But we need to say sicknesses—the literal meaning is sicknesses.] And carried our pains; [Okay I’m going to say that again.] Surely He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains.”

They are two basic Hebrew words which have the same meaning today as they had in the time of Moses. They’ve never changed their meaning. One of the is choli, which is the word for sickness, and modern Hebrew a hospital is a batecholine (?) a house of the sick. The same word. One of the unhappy— I love the King James Version—but one of the disadvantages is that this version in the King James they have spiritualized those two words. They’ve talked about ‘griefs’ and ‘sorrows,’ but it isn’t. It’s sickness and pain. Jesus took our sicknesses and bore our pains.

“Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes [or wounds] we are healed.”

Can you see the logic of it? He took our sicknesses, He bore our pain, and by His wounds we are healed.

“All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

That’s final verse is the center of everything. The common problem of humanity is that we’ve all turned to our own way. We are not all murderers or adulterers or drunkards. There’s one thing we all have in common—we are all rebels. We are rebels by nature and rebels by action. Now you may not have discovered that, but nevertheless it’s true. How many of you ever had to train your children to be naughty? Have you ever observed a little child of about two? That’s when it really begins to show. And maybe a very sweet little child but mother says, ‘Come here,’ and the first thing it does is turn in the opposite direction. Have you noticed that? That’s the rebel inside. Okay, that a problem we all have. Some of us have never faced the problem, but we all have it.

Now on the cross God visited on Jesus the rebellion of the whole human race. Not only that, but He visited on Him all the evil consequences that rebellion had brought on the whole human race. You see the Hebrew word for rebellion which is avon is used especially in the books of Moses. Not only of rebellion or iniquity as it’s called here, but of the punishment for iniquity. The same word means both. Sometimes you’ll find one translation will translate it one way and one will translate it the other. And God is in that because Jesus bore the avon of us all, our rebellion and all it’s evil consequences.

Every single problem that rebellion had brought on a sin-cursed race came on Jesus as He hung on the cross. The evil came upon Him that the good might be made available to us. You see He was the sin offering. That word is used in the tenth verse of Isaiah 53. Now if you go back to the Levitical ordinances, when a man sinned he had to bring an offering. It might be a sheep, it might be a goat, it might be a bullock, might be a ram, whatever. As a matter of fact, each level of society had its appropriate offering. That’s rather interesting. The more important you were, the bigger your offering had to be. So if you were the high priest and you sinned, you had to bring a bullock.

I don’t know if you ever pictured what happened if the high priest sinned. The cattle were not kept in the middle of the camp obviously. They were kept outside the camp. So the high priest has to go outside the camp, select his bullock and lead it all the way through the camp to the door of the tabernacle. And all Israel is standing in their tent door and saying, ‘Look at that.’ Nobody had to say a word. They all knew. It’s embarrassing to be a leader and sin. I mean I’m not talking from theory.

You know when you sin, at some time or another you have to confess it, you know. I remember many years ago, let’s say a good thirty or more years ago, I got angry with one of my daughters. She was about thirteen at the time, and I said thing to her that I had no right to say. Well, the rest of the day I noticed something inside me here like a little sort of glowing ember. And I had read in the book of Ecclesiastes, anger rests in the bosom of fools. Well I thought I don’t want this thing, I don’t like it. So for twenty-four hours I just thought I’ll pray and it will go away, and it didn’t go away. And I knew very clearly what I had to do. I had to go to my thirteen year old daughter and say I’m sorry I spoke to you like that. I had not right to do it. Please forgive me. There was no other way. The moment I did that, this thing dissolved. Well, that wasn’t the high priest with a bullock, but it was a little…

Now when a man had sinned, whoever he was, he brought is offering, he laid his hands on its head and confessed his sin over it. And symbolically his sin was transferred from him to this offering. Understand? Then the next thing that happened; the priest killed the offering. Why did he kill it? Because the offering was paying the penalty for the man’s sin. The wages of sin is what? death. That’s right.

Well of course the writer of Hebrews said it was not possible for the blood of bulls or of goats should take away human sin. That was just a picture of what was to happen when Jesus died on the cross. But on the cross God the Father laid upon Jesus the rebellion of the whole human race and all its evil consequences. Okay? When you see that, that’s the door to the orchard. You go in. You don’t need a preacher to tell you everything. Just take the key shaped like a cross.

Now we will very quickly tonight—and I’ve only got a little time left—but we will just quickly review some aspects of the exchange, by no means all. All right. It says in verses we’ve already read, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him. Chastisement is punishment. Now when a person does wrong, that person must be punished in God’s scale of values. I mean liberal theology can do what they like with it, but God hasn’t changed. So in order that a person may have peace, his sin has to be punished. Then he has peace with God. But the message here is the punishment for our sin came upon Jesus that we might have peace, that we might be forgiven. So this is the exchange.

Now what I do here is I use my left hand for the evil, my right hand for the good. Tonight Ill make theologians out of you all. I’ll let you tell me the answers. You won’t get it maybe the first time, but you’ll get it quickly. And I’m doing this because the more you participate the more you get out of it.

All right. Jesus was punished that we might forgiven. That’s the key word really. Forgiveness brings peace. Understand? Once God has forgiven you He’s not mad with you any more. You’re at peace with God. How many of you can remember as little children having offended your father or your mother, and knowing that they were angry with you. And you could try every way you could, but you couldn’t get peace until that thing had been dealt with. Is that right? And if parents would bring their children up right, that would be the same today. Children would learn there is no peace without forgiveness. And there’s no forgiveness without repentance.

All right, we’ll do this one again, then we’ll get launched. Jesus was punished—come on now—that we might be forgiven. That wasn’t very convincing. Let’s do it again. Jesus was punished that we might be forgiven.

The same Scriptures, the same verses, says, Surely He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains, and by His wounds [physical wounds] we are [physically] healed. Okay. Now I’ll say the left hand and you see if you can say the right. Jesus was wounded that we might be healed. That’s right. We’ll do it once more. Jesus was wounded that we might be healed. Okay.

“Then it says in Isaiah 53:10,
…When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His says, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.”

On the cross Jesus, the soul of Jesus was made the sin offering for the whole world. He became identified with our sin. He actually became guilty with our guilt. That’s something the human mind cannot fully comprehend. We will never understand all that was involved in that. But, He was made sin that we might be made what?—righteousness. Now if you look in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 you’ll find that Paul is quoting Isaiah 53:10, but most people don’t know that because they don’t know about the law of the sin offering, that the offering became sin with the man’s sinfulness. When he laid his hands on its head, he transferred his sin from himself to the offering. So 2 Corinthians 5:21—I’ll put in the nouns in place of the pronouns.

“God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

The exchange is very obvious. I’ll say the left hand, you be ready to follow with the right. Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we might be righteous with His righteousness. We’ll do that again. Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we might be made righteous with His righteousness. Notice it is not our righteousness, it’s God’s righteousness. Have you ever grasped that fact? Many of you never have. You have never really understood that you have been made righteous with God’s own righteousness. A righteousness which has never known sin, has no guilt, has no past, cannot be accused in any way. That’s what you receive through the death of Jesus. Many of you have continually struggles with guilt, with unworthiness, with inadequacy, with the sense of failure because you have never grasped this aspect of the exchange, which can only be received by faith. He was—I’m going to do it for myself—He was made sin with my sinfulness, that I might become righteous with the righteousness of God. Can you believe that? There’s no other way to receive it but to believe it.

“There’s a beautiful picture of this in Isaiah 61 verse 10. Isaiah 61:10,
I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness…”

Never stop with the garments of salvation. It’s wonderful to have them, but along with them goes the robe of righteousness. And the language is beautiful—He has covered me… One translation says, He has wrapped me around… I am totally covered with the righteousness of God. The devil can look at me from any angle he likes but all he can find is the righteousness of God. There is nothing of which he can accuse me. I’m unaccusable as long as I’m standing on the righteousness of God.

Isaiah says a little further on in chapter 64 verse 6, ‘All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags…’ He didn’t say all our sins are as filthy rags. He said all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Don’t try to get to heaven in the filthy rags of your own righteousness, even if you are a good Baptist, or a Pentecostal, or a Catholic, because you’ll not be admitted. And believe me you’d be glad not to be admitted, because in brilliant atmosphere you’d be terribly embarrassed. All the patches and the stains would show. Be like blind Bartimaeus—when Jesus comes throw your garment away and let Him give you a new robe of righteousness. Don’t struggle, don’t try, it’s by faith. You could just as well believe now as tomorrow. You can be believing right now. Sit there for a moment and relax. You don’t have to struggle. God does it. He covers you with a robe of His righteousness. Just feel the quietness. In that way people relax. I don’t have to make all these efforts, I don’t have to live by this set of seventeen rules, He’s covered me with His righteousness.

I tell you, this is such a simple message but I believe ninety percent of professing Christians in America today have never grasped it. We are just wearing ourselves out trying to clean up the rags of our own righteousness. It’s a waste of time. Don’t do it.

All right we’ve got to go on. I’m only going to give you some references. Hebrews 2:9 says that ‘Jesus by the grace of God might taste death for every man.’ So that gives us a very simple exchange. On the cross Jesus tasted my death that I might share His—come on theologians—life. That’s right. Let’s do it again. On the cross Jesus tasted my death that I might share His life. Remember He said in John 10 verse 10—‘The thief,’ who’s the thief? Satan, ‘only comes to steal, kill, to destroy. But I have come that they might have life,’ not just life, ‘but life more abundantly.’

You can’t earn life. You can’t buy life. It’s a gift. ‘The wages of sin is death,’ you can earn your wages—‘but the gift of God, the free gift, is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.’ See, what I say about the simple facts. They’re the ones that really matter.

You know what I’ve discovered with most Christians—well maybe I shouldn’t say most—but it’s my impression most Christians have heard a whole lot of sermons, but they’ve never found any way to fit them together. They really don’t have any foundations. Their minds are just filled with sermons, but they don’t have any clear picture of what salvation is.

Let me tell you this while we’re about it. The all-inclusive word for what Jesus obtained for us by His death is salvation. It includes everything—spiritual, physical, financial, material, temporal, eternal. One glorious all-inclusive word is salvation. Everything that Jesus purchased by His death is salvation. You see, the new birth is a one-time experience. Salvation is an ongoing process. I believe, I wouldn’t recommend it, you can be born again and go to heaven without being baptized. I wouldn’t recommend it but I think you’ll get there. Don’t blame me if you don’t. But if you want to be saved, if you want to be saved you have to be baptized, because he who believes and is baptized shall be saved.

That’s part of the salvation process. Okay? I’m aware I’m in a Baptist church. Baptists basically have been almost everything on being born again. Well being born again is wonderful, but it’s just one single experience at the beginning of what’s intended to be a life. Progressive life, ‘the pathway of the righteous is as the shining light that shines more and more to the perfect day.’

See God never calls salvation a location or a condition. He always talks about it as a pathway. You don’t stand in salvation, you walk in salvation. If you stand you know what you become? A backslider. The light on that pathway is brighter every step you take. If you’re living by yesterday’s light, today you’re a backslider.

Okay, let’s go on. Galatians 3:13 and 14. You’d better look at that. In—where was I?—Durham, I preached a whole night on this and I think it changed many people’s destiny. I rather think it changed the destiny of the church where I was preaching. But I’m not going to here because I’ve got a different program, so let’s just look at it. Galatians 3:13 and 14.

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’),
That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

Now the opposites are very clear, aren’t they? Jesus on the cross was made a curse, that we might receive the blessing. Now a lot of Christians are still living under the curse. They haven’t appropriated the blessing because they haven’t seen this aspect of the exchange. If you want to know what blessings and curses are you just need to read Deuteronomy chapter 28. Now it’s got sixty-eight verses so we’re not going to study it tonight. The first fourteen verses are the blessings and the next fifty-four verses are the curses. Now you’d better read that list and see whether enduring a curse or enjoying the blessing. Because it could be if you’ve never seen this aspect of the exchange, you’ve never benefited from it.

About two years ago I had the privilege of preaching to about seven thousand Africans in Zambia. And I spent one whole morning teaching them on the transition from the curse to the blessing, and I told them what curses were. Well they all knew they were under a curse. I would say 98.5 percent of them were under a curse, because they all had ancestors who were idol worshipers or been involved with witch doctors. And when I released those people, I led them in a prayer of release from the curse, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a large group of people so dramatically transformed in twenty-four hours. It was like meeting a different group of people the next day. That dark shadow had lifted. The brilliance of God’s Son was shining on them.

All right let’s just look at this. Jesus was made a curse that we might receive the blessing. I didn’t hear you. Blessing. That’s right. We’ll do that again. Some of you are not convinced I can tell that. That’s your problem. I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way. Jesus was made a curse that we might receive the blessing. All right.

Now that’s worthy of a whole sermon by itself, but I feel the Lord has given me this outline of four messages and to the best of my ability I’m going to stick to it. All right, on the cross Jesus also endured our poverty, that we might share His—let’s say—abundance. Now we’ve mentioned Deuteronomy 28. Let’s look at one of the curses. Deuteronomy 28 verses 47 and 48. This is in a list of curses that takes fifty-four verses. Now here it is—verses 47 and 48. How many of you would agree that poverty is a curse? Are you sure? You don’t need it to make you holy? Okay, all right. Everyone agrees on that.

“‘Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, [that’s God’s will that we serve Him with joy and gladness for the abundance of all things, but if we miss out on that this is the alternative,]
therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of all things:…”

That’s the alternative. Verse 47 is abundance. Verse 48 is poverty. Just think about that—hunger, thirst, nakedness and need of all things. What’s that in one word—poverty, total poverty, absolute poverty. You cannot have more poverty than being hungry, thirsty, without clothing and in need of everything. Bear in mind that is a curse.

Now Jesus was made a curse on the cross that we might be redeemed from the curse and receive the blessing. Have you ever thought about the condition of Jesus on the cross? This came to me by revelation. I was in the middle of preaching a message in New Zealand on giving. It was an important message because we were going to take up an offering to cover our expenses. I had my outline, I was going through it, I knew the subject, but while I was preaching I had a mental picture of Jesus on the cross. And each thing I spoke about in connection with poverty, it was like the Holy Spirit said ‘check that off.’ And I got this inner picture of Jesus and I saw that He endured total poverty. Listen He was hungry, He hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours. He was thirsty—one of His last utterances was ‘I thirst.’ He was naked— they’d taken every stitch of clothing from Him. And when He died He was buried in a borrowed robe and a borrowed tomb. He was in need of everything. That’s total poverty. Do you know what He did? He exhausted the poverty curse that we might have the blessing. If you really believe that you’ve got to be excited. I don’t care who you are. I mean it’s exciting.

Listen if somebody told you as you walked out of here some relative had died and just bequeathed you five million dollars, you would be excited. Just ask yourself, ‘Do I really believe what I’m hearing?’ He said to His disciples at the Last Supper, ‘When I sent you out without purse or staves, did you lack anything?’ They said, ‘We lacked nothing, nothing.’ Lot’s of missionaries that have got big salaries, lack a lot of things, but they lacked nothing.

My comment on Jesus is just by the way of expressing it, is that He used His Father’s credit card and it was always honored. That’s much more convenient really than carrying a lot of cash. When did He become poor? On the cross, that’s right. Because what? The curse came on Him. And when He took the curse, He took the total curse—hungry, thirsty, naked, in need of all things.’ Picture that and it’s grace. It’s good to go out and earn your living and work. I’m very much in favor of that, but that’s not grace. Your income is not limited to what you can earn. Okay, it’s limited to what you can believe for. Did you get that? God will not bless laziness or sloppiness. But if you have needs that extend beyond what you can legitimately earn, that doesn’t mean that God won’t meet your needs because it’s grace.

“Okay now we look at the opposite side. 2 Corinthians 9:8, 2 Corinthians 9:8.
And God is able [How many of you believe that to begin with? Do you really believe that? Let’s say it—God is able. What’s He able to do.] to make all grace [now I’m going to put it in us instead of you, because I don’t like to wish this just onto other people.] God is able to make all grace abound toward us, that we, always having all sufficiency in all
things may abound to all good works.”

Now I’ve change every to all because in Greek they’re the same word. And I did it to bring out this fact that in that one verse there are two abounds and five alls, in one verse. Let me do the abounds on my right hand and the alls on my left. ‘God is able to make all grace abound toward us, that we may always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to all good works.’ I don’t think there’s any way that language could be more emphatic than that. It’s just impossible to say more in one verse. What is it? It’s grace. How does grace come? John 1:17, ‘The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ There’s no other channel.

Ruth, come up here for a moment. We have a very large financial commitment for our ministry, our radio time alone costs more than a million dollars now a year, apart from all our other commitments. But when we begin to think about finance we go to 2nd Corinthians 9:8. We’ll say it with all.

Derek and Ruth: God is able to make all grace abound toward us, that we always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to all good works. Amen.

That’s grace. God bless you, thank you. I mean this is not a ritual with us. This is the way we survive. Now I must go on quickly because I’ve just got to come to an end. Let me say two more things and will not dwell on them tonight. Usually I dwell on them. On the cross Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory. ‘It became Him, from whom and through whom and to whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.’ It’s Jesus. Why did Jesus suffer? That God might bring many sons and daughters to glory. On the cross Jesus was stripped

naked. He bore our shame, literally, not just metaphorically, that we might share His glory. Now I can’t go into this but I just want to point it out to you. There are countless numbers of Christians who are plagued with a sense of shame. One common reason is things that happened in childhood. Because, I think, one out of every, I think, six or seven children in the United States is sexually abused in childhood, usually by members of the family. And that carries with it a sense of shame that can overshadow the rest of their life. It’s been our privilege to see countless people set free from shame. Have you noticed some people, when the pray, they can never lift their face up to God. They always pray like this. You know why? Because they have a sense of shame. But we can be released from that sense of shame because Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory. It says in the book of Job, ‘Thou shalt lift up thy face without spot to God.’ No embarrassment. I know what it is to be embarrassed. It was one of the problems of my life. Jesus bore my embarrassment that I might be free.

The last thing I want to say tonight is Jesus endured our rejection that we might have His, what’s the opposite of rejection?… Let’s say that—let’s say them both because I missed out and I don’t want to. In fact we’ll say all three—poverty, shame and rejection. What horrible ugly words they are. Jesus endured our poverty that we might share His abundance. That wasn’t very good. Try again. Jesus endured our poverty that we might share His abundance. Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory. Jesus endured our rejection that we might have our acceptance. Almost the last words He cried out on the cross were, ‘My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?’ Do you realize there came no answer? He was rejected by the Father. There are many types of rejection, but in my experience the deepest rejection of all is rejection by parents. And I think about one quarter of the children in the United States today suffer from that. Jesus endured the rejection of His Father, why? That we might be accepted as God’s children. The King James Version says in Ephesians 1:7, ‘we are accepted in the beloved.’ God has no second class children. You never have to knock on the office door and wait for Him to say, ‘Come in.’ You are welcome at any time.

Now one more… There are other aspects of this exchange. We have not covered them all. I trust I’ve convinced you that this is the place to go for oranges. This is the orchard, okay. There is no limit to the number of oranges in this orchard. You will never impoverish God. For every need you have He’s got fifty oranges. Okay, and that’s an under statement.

How do we appropriate all this? Okay? One simple short verse gives you the basis, then you have to work on that basis. I’ll give you the basis, Romans 10 verse 10.

“For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation.”

Remember what I said about salvation? It’s the all-inclusive word for everything that was obtained by the death of Jesus. How do we come into that all-inclusive provision? We believe with our heart and we confess with our mouth. Now it’s no good confessing with your mouth if you don’t believe in your heart. On the other hand, believing with your heart is not sufficient. You appropriate it when you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. That’s why I’ve been making you say all these things, see? I’ve been leading you into the method, so I need God’s financial provision. How do I appropriate it? I say ‘Jesus was made poor with my poverty, that I might share His abundance. And then I say ‘God is able to make all grace abound toward me that I always having all sufficiency in all things are bound to all good works.’ My confession brings me into the provision. Do you understand? You see Jesus said by your words you’ll be justified, and by your words you’ll be condemned. There are no neutral words. Every word is positive of negative. Eliminate the negative, and make your speech positive. Don’t talk about what you can’t do, talk about what God can do. Don’t advertise the devil. He’s got enough people in his pay. Advertise the Lord. Confession by origin is from a Latin word that means to say the same as. Confiteo (?). And that’s the correct meaning of the Greek word. If anybody wants to know that, it’s homologia. Homo, I—logia— I say. I say the same as. The confession is me saying with my mouth what God has said in His word. Some people say ‘name it and claim it.’ But I want to tell you if it isn’t in the Bible you can’t name it. You can’t write your own ticket. You can only take what God has said. But believe me if you take all God has said you won’t need much more. But it is saying the same as this book. That’s the key, believe it in your heart—how does faith come?—by hearing the word of God. If you don’t have enough faith, try some more hearing.

Let me tell you basically as a general principle, faith does not come by sitting in front of a television set. I mean, thank God for the Christian programs on television, but they’re minimal, and don’t try to tell me that’s all you watch. I mean. I’m not anti-television except that I think it’s probably the greatest single factor in the degeneration of American society. And our children today spend more time in front of the television than they spend at school. And about fifty times more with the television than they spend with their parents. But, I mean, you make your choice. But if you want faith it doesn’t come that way. How does it come? By hearing what God says.

One simple way to do it is get the Bible on cassette, and whatever you’re doing as a housewife, if you doing the washing up, if you’re doing whatever it is, just have the Bible there going all the time. You’ll be getting far more than you have any idea you’ll be getting. They have now what they call subliminal impressions. You don’t even know they’re coming, but they’re coming. Like they’ll, for instance, they’ll have something—an announcement on television—and they’ll put n in the middle of it, you can’t hear it but they say drink coke, you see. But they have discovered that that makes people want coke to their great loss.

Well, why don’t you get the right thing? I tell American audiences everywhere, ‘Listen for most of you, I’ll tell you the key to becoming super spiritual. It’s very simple. You just have to exchange two things—the amount of time you spend in front of the television and the amount of time you spend with your Bible. Just change them over. You’ll become super spiritual. Okay.

Now, listen I’m not a negative preacher, but I just tell you if you want faith there’s a way to get it. And if you want the results of faith, they come by faith and no other way. Believe in the heart and confess with the mouth, you’ll have it. Let’s go through this list and then we’ll close. And then we’re going to do something which I believe is appropriate. If you really believe what we’re going to say together, there’s only one thing you could possibly do and that’s praise the Lord. If you don’t praise Him you don’t believe it. Or else you’re the most stony-hearted, ungrateful person—there are no other options. I’d rather think that you don’t believe it than that you’re so hard-hearted.

Okay, now we’re going to do the left hand and the right. I’ll do the left, you do the right. Now bear in mind this is your confession. What I didn’t tell you was Hebrews 3:1, Jesus is the High Priest of your confession. No confession, no High Priest. Understand. But if you make the right confession He is obligated by His total faithfulness to see you get what you say. I think we could stand to our feet. Okay left hand, right hand. Listen, say it as if you mean it. You’re not impressing me. I mean it doesn’t matter to me, but there’s angels, there’s all sorts of people around. There may be a few demons. We are dealing with a whole unseen which most Christians are almost oblivious of. What we say enacts that world one way or the other. Okay.

Jesus was punished that we might be forgiven. That’s right. Some of you sounded like you really were forgiven. Jesus was wounded that we might be healed. Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we might be made righteous with His righteousness. Jesus tasted our death that we might share His life. What kind of life? Abundant life. Jesus was made a curse that we might receive the blessing. Jesus endured our poverty that we might share His abundance. Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory. And Jesus endured our rejection that we might have His acceptance.

“God bless you. You’ve come alive.”