Chambers, Robert: God's Availability

I appreciate the hymns our brother Bruce chose this morning. It, uh, works very well, particularly this last one into the message. You will turn to Leviticus chapter six. Leviticus six, and we'll read just verse thirteen. Very briefly, it says, a perpetual fire shall burn on the altar. It shall never go out. What I'd like to speak on the next three Sundays that you're stuck with having me speaking is a little subject about the availability of Christ. It is wonderful to think about how available he is to us. You know, if you want to see the captains of industry, maybe the commanding officer of your military unit, or the president or the king of your country, you have to make an appointment and hope that they'll grant you permission to see you. You know, their time is, uh, busy. They're pretty well occupied with many other important things. And if you consider God and how important the things that he deals with are, like holding planets and stars in their places, maintaining the laws of nature, including gravity, atomic structure that holds us together, uh, he has some important things to do, and yet he's always available for us to see him, to speak with him, to consult with him, to receive blessings and mercies and grace, and most importantly, salvation from him. But you know, there are some conditions to those availabilities. Number one, we have to yet still be alive. After one leads- leaves this life, uh, there are two courses and conditions which one finds himself in. The one is great. It's in the presence of the Lord, where he continues to maintain his availability throughout all eternity, where we can see him and talk with him at any time, and where we can, in that place and in that phase of life, touch him. There's also the other place, and the most horrible part about it is it's apart from God. On top of that, compounding the difficulty is the pain and the agony of it. Outer darkness, the scripture calls it, a place of unending pain and aloneness, and it gets worse. You know, there's more things spoken about hell than there is about heaven. There's also the place called... a place of gnashing of teeth. And there's also the fire that never goes out there. The fire of pain, be it literal or not, doesn't matter. The effect is still the same. You know, the great Pharaoh had an opportunity. He was touched by God ten times to convince him of his power and his reality. The miracles, the ten miracles that Moses, uh, performed that actually came from God, of course, they just made Moses, I mean, Pharaoh's heart and his neck even harder and stiffer. And that, of course, can happen to us in this life, as we are touched by the Holy Spirit and taught and told about the love of God and of Christ. We either go one of two ways. We either accept it, and maybe it takes several times, and the Lord, through his spirit, contends with us. But also we make it harder, like Pharaoh did. In fact, there's an Old Testament scripture that says God will not always contend with us. There comes a point when he knows it's futile, and he won't argue with us any longer and lets us have our way. You know, there are some things God can't do. God cannot force one to believe in him. He allows us to have that free will. But God is always available if you are seeking him and desire to know him. And there's some illustrations from the Old Testament that show us these things. And I like the Old Testament, uh, a lot because it gives us wonderful word pictures that helps to describe to us things that even a painted or a photograph picture, uh, wouldn't do justice in. Besides, I believe if we had a photograph or a painted picture of what Christ looked like, we would worship the picture rather than the man. Rather than having his image, what his eye color was, what his face looked like, we have the man himself. We know what he is. We know who he is, described by these words. A perpetual fire shall burn on the altar, and it shall never go out. This speaks, in reality, to the eternal nature of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary, pictured in an Old Testament sacrifice, uh, this burnt sacrifice. I'd like to look at seven features of the Old Testament types. Now, if you remember, I'm not really sure how many of you have a background in Old Testament, uh, teachings, uh, but basically the Old Testament gives us types and shadows in certain instances of teaching, and particularly the tabernacle, which I think is the most gorgeous and detailed pictures of who Christ is of anything else that we have. And I've chosen seven sections of the tabernacle that tell us about the availability of Christ in our lives here and now. There is one other time when Christ will no longer be available, and that's after he comes to the church. It will be a very limited availability after the rapture of the church. And for those, I believe, that have already heard the gospel and rejected it, after the rapture of the church, there will be no opportunities in the tribulation period to accept him. Let's look at this. First of all, there's the outer gate we find in Exodus twenty seven, and we'll turn to that in just a minute. But before I start, let me set the scene. Uh, the nation of Israel desires to leave the slavery of Egypt, and they cried to God for four hundred years during their enslavement, because it says that the Egyptian government worked them vigorously. They were the slaves of Egypt, and they were beaten and starved and, uh, held in very low esteem, kept in, uh, terrible ghettos in the slum sections of the great cities of Egypt, until God heard the cry of the nation of Israel, his chosen people. And you know, the reason that they were there was because of their sin, and God was teaching them a lesson. And as well, we find in First Corinthians, uh, ten verse eleven that these things were written, meaning of the Old Testament, as examples for you, that you might learn how God deals with us. And so taking that and looking back into the Old Testament, uh, the nation of Israel being captive and enslaved to the nation of Israel, uh, finds it hard. And so they cry to God. They've lost everything else. They've finally given up. They can't beat their way out of Egypt. They can't take control of Egypt, and that's why the Egyptians held them down, because they were afraid that these Jews might take over their country, and they had great cities to build, so they used them as slaves to do their hard labor work. Four hundred years transpire, and God says, it's time. God chose the time, and he sends Moses. Moses goes to Pharaoh and gives him those ten examples of the power of God, and finally, with the death of the son of Pharaoh, he says, get out. Take our gold and jewels and precious stones, but get out. And of course, we know the exodus now of the nation of Israel. They leave Egypt. Pharaoh changes his mind at the urgings of his military commanders, and he runs after them, and we know the crossing of the Red Sea, where the nation of Is- Israel walks across the dry bed of the Red Sea through the channel that God had created, but then when the Egyptians follow, the waters come crashing down and they die. Well, God decides and knows that they need to commune with him on a daily basis. We need that as well. His way hasn't changed. And so he provides for them a place of meeting. It was called the tabernacle, or better known as the tent of meeting, where God and man met. And so God provided for mankind a way that they might commune and talk with him and be led by him under his direction and care. And he gave them very great details. In fact, it seems to be strongly implied that when Moses was on the mountain, God showed him a model of the tabernacle, so that the artisans would have something to guide them in the direction of their crafting of these components. Now, the nation of Israel, as they left Egypt, was comprised of about two million souls. Putting that into perspective, uh, in the Franklin County area, there's only about one hundred and seven to one hundred and twelve people in residence here. Washington, D.C. has about two and a half million people in the metropolitan area of the city of Washington, Virginia, and Maryland. Baltimore is probably a little less than two million people. Philadelphia, I think, is around two, two and a half million people. New York, around seven million people. The tabernacle building was only fifteen feet tall, fifteen feet wide, and thirty feet long. And yet, to be absolved of, of their sins, they were to take their sacrificial animals to this little building in the center of their town as they moved about the desert. And of course, they were in their twelve-tribe tribe assortment arranged around the tabernacle, so the tabernacle was in the center. And just think for a moment, if you were a typical Jewish person, and you sinned and you know it, and you know in order to be right with God, you have to take an animal sacrifice to the priest at the tabernacle, because that's the only place it can take place, and you have to walk there. You've got a long, long journey to go. And so you take your sacrifice to that tabernacle building, and outside that building is a courtyard. There's a long, uh, curtain around the tabernacle itself. Uh, you come to that courtyard, and there's only one entry. It's on the east side. It's interesting to note that that entry, the gate is wider, the gate itself section is wider, uh, than any other portion of that east wall of the tabernacle, showing that it's, it's, it's wide and open, inviting people to come in and deal with their sins, make sacrifice for their sins, and be made right with God. And of course, our relationship with Christ in the word of the New Testament is the same thing. Whosoever will may come. He desires us to come to him. You don't have to go through priests. No longer do you have to go to a place. You don't have to go to Jerusalem. You don't have to go to Washington, D.C., or London, or any other place. The only place you have to go is in your heart, open, repentant before God, desiring to make right with God and yourself, to deal with your sin. Just like the illustration of the typical Jewish person who wants to, uh, have absolution for their sin. They take their sacrifice to the tabernacle, to the gate, and enter that gate. Uh, we find very, very many minute details of the tabernacle, but you don't find any opening or closing times for the gate of the outer court of the tabernacle. Uh, also, not just priests go in that gate, you can go in that gate if you were a Jewish person of that day. And so let's turn to Exodus twenty seven for just a minute. By the way, it was interesting last Sunday night when Craig showed us his films. If you noticed, uh, he highlighted, uh, the east gate wall of Jeru- the city of Jerusalem, and he mentioned that Jesus Christ, when he comes back to this earth, will enter the East Gate. And if you notice, that East Gate was blocked up. The gate structure, you could see it, but there was nothing but massive stones in the entry of that gate. And of course, on the other side of the gate, stones too. It's just filled up with the stones and rubble from past conquests. And I think that indicates the fact that there will be, will come a day when the entry, uh, to the palaces of God, if you will, will be closed up. And right now, in the history of Israel, as we read in Leviticus six, there was a perpetual fire. Of course, we know on the altar of the burnt offering, the burnt offering altar, uh, that fire is gone and out right now, but one day will be opened again, and that gate will be open again, and God will start his time clock and his relationship and dealings with the nation of Israel. But now, thank God, he's dealing with us as Gentiles. In the Old Testament days, if you were a Gentile, you had very little opportunity to become a Jewish person and have that relationship with the Lord, but there were those who did because they desired to know God. Exodus twenty seven and verse sixteen, it says, for the gate of the court, there shall be a screen twenty cubits long, woven of blue and purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen thread, made by a weaver. It shall have four pillars and four sockets. Now, the courtyard was the, was fifty cubits wide and a cubit's cubit and a half is, is about eighteen inches to twenty inches long. Uh, basically it was the measure from the, the tip of the typical person's finger, uh, to their elbow. You know, they didn't have, uh, the, the Bureau of Standards, the Institute of Standards like we do now, and so they just, you know, whoever was the measurer, the master, uh, in charge of the construction, he would measure from the tip of his finger to his elbow, so that's a cubit. Fifty cubits wide on the east and the west side, and one hundred cubits long on the north and the south side. Now, on the east side, where this gate is, the gate itself, the opening where people could go in, was twenty cubits wide, fifteen cubits on the right, and fifteen cubits on the left. So you can see the gate occupied the largest portion of the east wall. If you notice that in the picture of the east gate to the city of Jerusalem, in pers- in in perspective to the fifteen hundred foot long wall that was there, it was just a little small, real small portion. And typically, when you have a gate or a door, it's just a s- just wide enough to go through. Uh, typically thirty two to thirty six inches wide is the typical, uh, door to a home. You see most buildings, if the door opening to that building was the widest portion of a wall, it would be considered a dock, not a door. But here we see a picture of the wideness of the opening of God's invitation for us to come in and to get to know him and to have our sins taken care of. In Romans ten thirteen, it says, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It doesn't say might or may be saved, shall be saved. And you know, when you look in Leviticus, where it talks about the offerings, it says that when you bring the offering, it shall be accepted by the Lord. God is so accepting. You know, we come in our weakness and our, our poor ways, in our half-hearted attempts. At the Lord's Supper, sometimes we come here with our minds preoccupied, and yet he delights in any small tidbit of your love expressed to him in the privacy of your own heart. He delights in that kind of worship. As poor as it may be, he wants more. He knows that more is better for you and me, yet he delights in even our small worship that we have for him just once a week, as well as what we should have throughout the week. John three fifteen and sixteen basically says, whoever believes in him shall have everlasting life. It's a belief. It's, it's not that you bring money or things or an offering to him. You bring yourself and your trust and your belief in him, and he accepts that. You know, some of us have stronger beliefs than others, but God accepts the little bit of belief that we have, and he accounts that for righteousness because of what Christ has said. Let's turn to First Timothy for just a few moments. First Timothy in chapter two. and we'll read verses three through six. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself for ransom for all, to be testified in due time. The typical Jewish person, having sinned, has to bring a lamb. It had to be the best of their flock if they were honest and in a- and obedient to the law. That lamb had to be set aside for two weeks or so and inspected carefully. Uh, the, the wool pulled apart and make sure there wasn't any, there weren't any, uh, blemishes of any kind. Uh, lambs typically are frail and fragile, from what I've been told. Uh, maybe our brother Connie could tell you more about it. Uh, but they also tend to kick one another, and they're born with the defects sometimes, like humans are. You couldn't have a lamb like that. It could have had no diseases, and it couldn't have any deformities of body. The best that you had were supposed to be brought. You know, when we come to the Lord, we don't bring anything because he's already given us our lamb as himself. Christ is spoken of as the Lamb of God, and as we read here, he has been provided for us. It says for the, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. There's nothing mentioned here about you bringing anything, is it? You can come free of your own volition, and he asks you to do that. It says that God desires that all men would be saved. It doesn't say that all men will be saved. It speaks of God's desire, but he won't force it on you. He is, as others have said, a perfect gentleman. He won't force you to do anything. And so you can freely and of your own will choose to reject God. It's your choice, just as it was the choice of the Jewish person not to take care of their sins and to not bring a lamb of sacrifice to deal with their sins and trespasses, as they were supposed to do, and there were penalties for not doing it. But whoever believes in him should have eternal life, the guarantee of God and his, uh, everlasting promise. Hebrews seven twenty five says, wherefore, uh, he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. In other words, you know, in the, in the Old Testament days, when a Jewish person brought a sacrifice for their sin, it was for one specific sin. And if on their way back from that sacrifice, they stumbled and cursed, they have another sin to have to sacrifice for, and they'd have to take another lamb back to the priest in the center of this two million city, two million person city, and sacrifice another innocent lamb for their sin. But for us, we are saved to the uttermost, if we come unto God. So all of our sins, as we're taught, were laid on the person of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. And when you or I accept Christ and we believe in him, we accept that he died for me and my sins, and he is my sacrificial lamb, all my sins are taken away. Now, that doesn't seem fair, does it? Because the other poor folks that, that ignore Christ and, and reject him, all their sins are still on them. Now that doesn't mean that I'm not responsible for my sin. When I commit a sin, it affects me, and it affects the body of Christ, the believers that I fellowship with. You, the rest of you here in fellowship in this assembly, are affected and impacted by me as I am you. My relationship with the Lord is harmed by sins, but I will never lose salvation because all my sins have been paid for on the cross. And certainly some sins cause damage to us in this life and in our bodies that we pay for. We're taught in First Corinthians eleven about the Lord's Supper that there were those who were coming in an unworthy manner. In other words, they didn't deal with their sins. They weren't confessing them. They weren't repentant of their sins. They were saved, but they weren't right with the Lord. It said that many of them sleep, and some even die. And so there is consequences for sin, even though we have had a savior pay for them for us. There are yet some earthly consequences, but I will never have to answer for my sins to God when I enter heaven, because Christ already has answered for that. Saved to the uttermost. I can't lose it, I can't give it away, I can't reject salvation once I have truly trusted in him. The next one we find in Matthew eighteen three, verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. The other aspect of this open wide gate is the innocence of the c- of the one who comes. Uh, and I want to make, maybe that's not a good word to use, innocence, but it has to be in a childlike way. And it's most significant, I believe, that most people who accept Christ as their savior are children. The vast majority, numerically and statistically, it's children. They say the older that you become, the harder it is to accept Christ. Why? Because you're not willing to humble yourself. You've already got so many sins piled up, you can't get over it, or there's just so, so big a pile of arrogance there about ourselves that we're not willing to admit that I'm a wretched, awful person. And in comparison with the holiness and the righteousness of God, I'm just an awful thing, an ugly, terrible, blemished beast. The Bible says that the heart of man is only evil continually and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And all we have to do is look at our fellow man and their behavior. Right now, of course, the main thrust of the news services is Central Africa and what those people are doing to each other because they're different tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis. We wonder, what is this? But all we have to do is think back on this country's history and look at some of the crime statistics that are occurring in this country alone. And if we really are honest and true, we look into our own hearts and minds, and we think about our anger, uh, toward other people for minor infractions, for little, little things. Maybe it's even those who drive a little too slow on the road, or those who drive too fast and pass us all the time and do dangerous things and put our lives in jeopardy, much less those who are out and out criminals. Uh, there's just hatred in our hearts, and it's active, and we have a hard time dealing with it, and that's what God is trying to tell us. And if we had been born in Central Africa into the Tutsi tribe, we would have the same hatred and vile thoughts about those in the Hutu tribe. We wouldn't be any different than those people there. We see it in New York City and in Philadelphia, in Washington, DC, in San Francisco, in LA. It's the same hatred, and it's within our hearts, the same capacity and capability. So we need a savior. So why not admit it? And that's what God says. Come on, listen. You know what your heart is like. If you don't, here's the description, only evil thoughts continually and desperately wicked. And there's nobody here too bad for salvation, and there's nobody here too good that doesn't need salvation, because we are the same way. Let's turn next to Ephesians chapter two. And cha- and verse four. Ephesians two verse four. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. If you get the sense of this series of verses, God does this for us through Christ. God does something else for us through Christ. He brings us salvation. He brings us the cleansing from sins. He grants to us, uh, eternal life because he chose to do it. Not because we deserved it. There's nothing in here about our deserving these things. It's all because of his mercy and his grace, and if we have but little faith, that's all it takes. And you know, he even gives us the faith that we need to believe in him, if we desire to know him. So the wideness of the gate grows wider all the time, doesn't it? And we see the benefit to each one of us. It doesn't matter our race, our background, our former religion, our family history, or our personal history. It doesn't matter at all. Nothing of that is spoken of. In fact, in other epistles, it tells about the gross sins that these believers once practiced. It says such as, uh, such as, some of you were such as these, it says, and it talks about immorality and greed and hatred and murder. He's talking to Christians. The letter was addressed to believers. Such were some of you, it said. Envies, bitterness, angry people. Some of you were that way, and yet they were believers. It says, now going past these things, take on yourself the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, and long suffering, and patience with love. So we can go from a former life trans- uh, transformed by the indwelling Holy Spirit at salvation, and we can be made new. We can be made all over again because of his love for us. And John three eighteen says, he who believes in him is not condemned. Uh, we'll find in other verses that the obverse or the, the, the negative of that is, if you don't believe in him, you are condemned. It says you are condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already. Right behind it, so we see it, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. There's a consequence for every action, just like the law of, of uh, forces. For every action is an equal and opposite reaction. You know, the same God that causes that to be a truth says what we just read in this verse. If you believe in God, you're not condemned, but if you don't believe, you... And why? Because you have not believed in the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. The gate is wide, but you have to enter it. You have to go there. It's open and an invitation for each one of us to believe in the only begotten Son of God. You know, one day that gate will shut, either because you die or because your heart is so hardened that you refuse anymore to hear the truth, and you say, forget it, I'm too busy, I have other things to think about, maybe I'll consider it when I'm older. You may not get to be any older. Either you could die or the Lord would come. You know, John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, Grace, uh, he nearly died hundreds of times, and he kept wondering, why is this happening to me, that I'm preserved from death so often, until finally he was brought to salvation, and he accepted the Lord. Then as he looked back over his life, having been saved, he wrote that hymn, Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. What a tremendous testimony, but that ought to be every one of our testimonies, shouldn't it? That God had such grace that he would save any one of us, much less all of us. And the great thing is he desires to save us. He wants to save us. God didn't send his son to die on the cross just to save a few. His desire and his want was to save all of us. But he doesn't want to save someone who doesn't want to be saved. That's the only provision, it's the only clause in the contract that we have to watch, and it's not written in small print because God brought it out time and time again in the Bible so that we would be warned. God is full of grace, and that includes not forcing anybody into heaven. Now, he does go to extreme measures. Some of us have to be scared to accept Christ. Some of us are drawn by his love. Some are drawn by the pure logic of it all. It doesn't matter, does it? God knows us, he knows our hearts, and he comes to you. If you've refused salvation times in the past, beware. Be very, very aware that it may not continue. The next one is the fire on the brazen altar. As we read in Leviticus six thirteen, a perpetual fire shall burn on the altar, and it will never go out. Let's go back to Leviticus chapter six. And we'll begin reading with verse eight. And this is called the law of the burnt offering. It says, then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, command Aaron and his sons, and if you remember, these were the priests, saying, this is the law of the burnt offering. The burnt offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar all night until morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it. And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen trousers he shall put on his body, and take up the ashes of the burnt offering which the fire has consumed on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar. Then he shall take off his garments, put on other garments, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not be put out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning and lay the burnt offering in order on it, and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. A perpetual fire shall burn on the altar, and it shall never go out. The burnt offering as a, as one of the five Old Testament offerings. There, if you remember the five, uh, in, in coming from God, they're placed in heavenly order. If you look at it in reverse, it's earthly order. Uh, as the Bible gives it to us, it gives us the burnt offering first, and that offering is a picture of the, uh, the sinless perfection and, and willing obedience of Christ to give his life for to God on the cross of Christ. He gave himself an offering for us, but you know, it was in obedience to God's direction. Remember, he prayed in the garden, uh, he desired that the cup would pass from him. Nevertheless, not his will, but God's will be done. Not that Christ was trying to get out of the cross, but here's the holy sinless one, the man from heaven, and he was going to have placed on him your sin and mine. He had never sinned in his life, and there was no capacity in him to sin, the Bible says. And people tried to get him to sin, and he wouldn't. He couldn't. And so here's this one who had never been tainted by sin, and he was to be made sin for you and me, and he was revolted by our sin. And yet, even that, he was willing to do the will of the Father, and so he did. The offering next is the peace offering, and this one, excuse me, it's the the meal offering, and this is a picture of the humanity of Christ. He was a man, but he was a perfect man. He was from heaven. He had never done any sin, and so he was the only one who could shed his blood, uh, to take away our sin, because God had declared that in order to take away sin, there must be the shedding of blood. And so that's why all these sacrifices in the Old Testament were set up. But we find out in Hebrews that they did absolutely nothing in reality. It was only their picture of the blood of Christ shed at Calvary that they had any value whatever, that they were all pictures or shadows, represent- representatives of Christ, because his death on the cross was good for the sins of the whole world throughout all time, from Adam and Eve all the way to the last person who loses their life on this earth. And so there it is, the meal offering, and it was not any animal sacrifice, it was grain meal. It was, it was no blood involved with this one. Then there was the peace offering, and this established the, the, the reality of the peace between the offerer and God. And this one was somewhat unique in that the animal sacrifice, most of it was taken back by the offerer, and tradition tells us that he shared that peace offering sacrifice with his neighbors and those who had offended him or he had offended, uh, to make peace with them as well. Now, those first three that we just mentioned, the burnt meal and the peace offering, were free will offerings. You didn't have to bring them. It's because you desired to do these things for God that you brought these sacrifices. Again, the best that you had, the best animals, the, the best meal. And then came, uh, the, the next one is the trespass offering, which was specific violations of laws, specific sins, if you will, that you brought because you know about them. You did them, and you know it, and you confess it, and you sacrifice for it. You could, you could have that sin removed. And then the last one was the sin offering. You are a sinner. You are one who does, has, and will commit sins. It's that thing within each one of us that makes us unholy and unacceptable to God, and you could bring that offering. But here, the brazen altar, it's a perpetual fire. It goes on and on, and you know Christ as our sacrifice is always good for us. It's always there. Not that Christ is sacrificed again, but it indicates the perf- perfect nature of his sacrifice. He doesn't have to be sacrificed over and over and over, like the Old Testament sacrifices did, once for all. Done once and never to be done again. His one sacrifice was good to take away the sins of the whole world, and his sacrifice on the cross took away all my sin and all of yours, if you accept him as your savior. And you'll have not to answer to God for your sin or your sins. And then in man's perspective, though, we come to God first to deal with our sin, and then our trespasses, our specific sins against him, and then we get to enjoy God. We can enjoy him in those aspects because we've been, we've been absolved and made righteous, absolved of our sins and made righteous before him, justified, uh, by his grace in the sight of God, justified in order to go into heaven, to be with him in his holy presence, and made holy and unblameable before him in love. And then we can enjoy him on a grander scale. We have peace with God, we can have comfort of heart and soul because my sins are gone. And then I can enjoy him as a man. I can touch him one day. And right now he desires to touch us emotionally, spiritually, and mentally, and and to be involved in our lives in a real way. He's the man from heaven. And then finally, the burnt offering. I can enjoy him because he always did those things that pleased his father, and if we know him and are obedient to him, we'll please him because we desire, because we love him. We've gone past thankfulness because he saved our souls, like a good insurance policy would rebuild our homes when it burns, but he prevents us from having that experience and translates us from this life of sin and prospects of hell to another life of glorious wonder in heaven with no sin, no pain for an eternity, and also in this life to live a life of value and purpose and blessings before God. The gate is wide open, and the altar, the sacrifice, the fire of it is still good for us, and it never goes out. Until we die, or until our hearts are hardened, we can have access to God through the sacrifice that Christ made for us on Calvary. Well, I've got four more, and our time is five minutes past, so I better quit, and we'll save the rest for tonight and next Sunday. My dear God and Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your great love. We're thankful that the gate to heaven is still wide open. We're thankful for the wideness of thy love for us, that regardless and in spite of our sin and our wretched condition and the terrible shape of our heart and our thoughts, yet you still love us. Yet Christ was still sent to the cross knowing all these things, and even after salvation, when we still continue to sin, yet we have an advocate with thyself in Christ Jesus, because he paid for those sins too. Father, I would pray this morning, if there's any here that have not accepted Christ, possibly who have had the thoughts a few times before but have turned them down, that they might not delay too long, for thy coming again is soon, and this life can be brief, and our hearts can harden. Father, I would pray for soft hearts today, hearts that would desire to make right and to have peace with thee. We can have no real peace without Christ, and that those of us that know him as our Savior might enjoy a deeper relationship with him, to find that peace, enjoy that man from heaven, that we might in, in essence, bring our burnt sacrifices, our lives wholly consecrated to God because of what Christ has done for us. In his name I pray. Amen.