KINGDOM OF GOD SERIES
“Two Aspects of God’s Forgiveness”
1 John 1:9
REVIEW
- What priority does the Kingdom have? First Matt 6:33
- When is the Kingdom? Now
- Where is the Kingdom? Go to John 17:20-21
- How do you enter the Kingdom of God? God Draws…Undone
- 1 John 1:9 says…(quote)
- Pray
TRANS: We have looked at what priority the Kingdom has, when and where the kingdom is and we will continue to look at how you enter by looking at two aspects of God’s Forgiveness
- Story of two goats found in Leviticus 16
1. Goat for Righteousness
- Every year at the time of the Day of Atonement
- Two goats are to be chosen for a sin offering and they are as perfect as they can be
- Aaron was told to cast lots for the goats…one to be the goat for righteousness
- One goat to be the goat for removal
- You see, God wants to forgive your sin but He has to do it in a righteous manner
- God loves Perry, but the things that Perry had done in his life are unholy
- But God is Holy…and a Holy God wants to have a relationship with an unholy person like Perry
- Now God just can’t wink, and say, “I’ll pretend it’s just not there…”
- What God has to do, is God has to find a way to righteously forgive Perry’s sin
- And to forgive Perry’s sin without violating His own Holiness
- And so the picture is given to us in Leviticus of an atonement being made and a sacrifice being made and a substitute happening…
- This is being done to make the nation of Israel acceptable to God
- So they had a righteous substitute and a removal substitute
- Aaron lays his hands on the head of the first goat that is the righteous substitute
- And he confesses the sins of the nation on the head of the first goat
- The bible says in Rom 6:23, “The wages of sin is death” and so there has to be a death
- And the death is going to be the death of this little goat
- So this little goat is brought out, the sins of the nation put upon it, and then it’s throat is slit, and it’s blood is spilled out
- They take that blood into the holy of holies and in there is the Ark of the Covenant
- Inside is the 10 Commandments that they have not been able to keep
- And above the Ten Commandments is a seat, a judgement seat, where they are going to be judged for their sins…
- For a violation of God’s Word and God’s Commands
- And so it’s a judgement seat but the priest takes the blood from the sacrifice…
- Sprinkles it on the judgement seat and the judgement seat becomes the mercy seat
- God looks upon the blood and passes over our and says your sins have been forgiven but it’s not a forgiveness without the penalty being paid
- And then comes a man named Jesus…Go with me to Isaiah 53
- This was the Old Testament way but Isaiah 53 tells us of a different sacrifice
- We see in this passage that God took our iniquities and He took our sins and in a very real way…
- He laid His hands upon Jesus and spoke over Jesus the sins of mankind
- That’s why when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming, he said “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world”
- Jesus takes our place…Jesus takes our whipping…Jesus becomes the substitute for us
- Isaiah 53:6 says (read)
- God took my sin and your sin and put them on His own Son Jesus Christ
- Look at verse 10
- Jesus became for us that goat of righteousness, the substitute that died in our place
- He died in our place…He became the sin offering for us
- II Cor 5:21 says, “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God”
- He became smitten of God…God poured out His wrath upon Jesus
- Until it was completely PAID FOR! And at that point Jesus said, “IT IS FINISHED”
- What He was saying is, PAID IN FULL!
- He is the goat that substitutes and make us righteous
- You’ll never be acceptable to God, you can only see that God has made a way through His Son for you to be acceptable
- There is another story I want to share with you from John 3 where we began…it won’tt take long, I just want you to see
- Look at John 3:14-15 (read)
- As you read that you get this picture of Moses…and he’s one of these guys back in the mountains and hills as a snake handler
- But that’s not what happened
- Here’s what happened, In Numbers 21…the children of Israel have rebelled against God and have grumbled against God
- And God has sent poisonous, venomous snakes among em
- There are thousands of snakes in the camp, people are getting bit and are dying
- And so the camp is poisoned and the people come running to Moses asking him to intercede with God
- Ask Him to have mercy, we repent, we see our rebellion and stinky attitude…help us
- So Moses goes before God and God gives Moses a solution
- The solution is, you make a representative, you make a substitute, that represents the poison
- You nail it to a pole and lift the pole up…And the bible says that anybody who gets snake bit
- If they will look at the snake on the pole, if they will look at the substitute
- If they will look at the judged snake
- Then they will live…it took a look at the judgement representative to live
- Bible says, just as the snake was lifted up so must the Son of Man be
- Jesus became the serpent in a sense, He became the representative of sin
- And then He was lifted up on a pole. What pole? THE CROSS!
- Now what could the children of Israel do? All they could do was look.
- They couldn’t bring sacrifices, couldn’t have Moses pray, and couldn’t make any kind of potion
- All that they could do was look at the serpent on the pole
- And all we can do is realize MY KING, JESUS, died in my place
- All we can do is realize I can never make myself acceptable to God
- But He became sin for me and bore the punishment of my sin
TRANS: Now, let’s talk about the second goat, the…
2. Goat for Removal
- If you have sinned and yet you can’t get past the guilt of that
- Can’t get past hurt of that, or the shame of that
- God didn’t just make a way for you to be forgiven and made righteous but He provided for you to be 100% free from your past
- Story of Farmer
- Old farmer that stole his neighbor’s cow, he is convicted of God about it and returns the cow
- Maybe he gives a chicken back with it or something
- Periodically, he gets to feeling guilty about that cow and he gets on his knees and says “O God, please forgive me for taking that cow.”
- And the Father in heaven checks the record and there is not record of a stolen cow
- The farmer is okay for a little while and then he goes back again and asks God to forgive him again
- And that happens several times
- Finally the father calls the son and says, “This farmer, he keeps talking to me about a stolen cow and I can’t find any record of it”
- “Son do you know where that cow went?” And the Son holds up two hands with scars in em
- And the Father goes “OH, I know where it went”
- For the truth of scripture is Jesus’ death on our behalf…
- Not only allowed God to forgive us but it allowed God to forget it
- And it would sure be good if you could forget it
- I don’t care what you’ve done, once you’ve confessed and repented, my bible says it is removed
- The second goat is the goat of removal
- Two goats; one to die and the second to live
- Aaron would put his hands on the second goat, the living goat, and confess over that goat the sins of the nation
- And then a guide would take that goat so far in the wilderness that he could never find his way home
- He would carry those sins so far away they would never be remembered or return again
- Some versions say “He would take those sins into the land of forgetfulness, where they will never be remembered anymore”
- This goat is the “Scapegoat” which in the Hebrew means “goat of removal”
- Jesus came not only to bring us forgiveness but forgetfulness on the part of God
- My bible says that God put the sins of the world on Jesus’ back so He can’t see it anymore
- I won’t to quickly give you some scriptures that may help in your life to let the guilt go
- These are some scriptures that will help you see your past as God sees it
- Go with me to Isa 38:17
- Go to Isa 43:25
- Go to Psa 102:10-12
- Globe…North and south meet…not east and west
CONCLUSION
- Are your sins ever before you? Do you walk around today with guilt of your past?
- Have you ever really placed them on the Scapegoat?
- If your sins are ever present and before you, always glaring and glowing
- The bible says this in Isa 1:18, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord, Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
- Crimson and Scarlet were the most noticeable, steadfast stains that they used in that day
- God says, If your sin is as Crimson or Scarlet, and you don’t think they can ever be clean…let’s talk about…because they can.”
- He who loves us and releases us from our sins. Do you have something you need to be released of today?
- Rev 1:5-6 says that Jesus released us from our sin
- During our invitation, close our eyes and picture laying hands on a little lamb…one to die and one to remove
- Understand Jesus became sin for us and He releases us and removes from us that sin…if you need to come and lay it all on the alter…please come.
Pray….Invitation
