Complete Redemption | James Buntrock

Before I begin, let me just pray a little bit.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the Holy Spirit who shines light on your Word and gives us revelation knowledge.

Lord, your Word is wonderful and we cherish it.

It's valuable, it's precious.

And so, lord, here we are tonight, ready to receive what you have.

And, holy Spirit, you bring revelation knowledge out of the written word, you put life on it, you put light on it and it becomes alive within us, something that we can grab hold of, that we can do battle with, that we can use in our life and help others with.

And so, lord, I thank you for both the written word and the God-breathed word, and we're ready to receive both tonight.

Lord, I pray that everybody, under the sound of my voice, no matter what I say, they're going to hear precisely what they need to hear.

They're going to receive exactly what they need to receive tonight.

We thank you for these things in Jesus' name.

Amen, all right.

Well, the title of tonight's message is Complete Redemption, and it's not that I'm going to tell you every single thing that there is about redemption.

That would take a really long time and I'm going to try not to keep you a really long time, but the redemption that was provided to us and for us through Jesus, the plan of redemption that was instituted was an absolute, complete plan from beginning to end and it provided everything that God intended for us.

And I know that we, you know, just growing up in church if you were in children's church you could hear some really basic things about salvation and kind of hear almost a storybook version of what Jesus did and leave it at that and sometimes that's all people know and you know a storybook version of what Jesus did will get you saved and save you out of the pit of hell and it'll get you something.

But there are a lot of what I consider to be blanks in the story of redemption that people don't know and I don't want to take it for granted that we know something you know.

Sometimes you just pretend like people don't know anything and then you put it all out there and some things they're going to hear and so you'll hear some things tonight that you knew and it'll reinforce what you know and maybe the Holy Spirit's going to put some life and light on that for you and it's going to mean something extra special to you.

But maybe you're going to hear some things that fill in the blanks for you, things that you didn't know or didn't consider, didn't really think about, didn't even know was possible.

And so that's the goal for tonight is to help fill in some of those blanks and hear the redemption plan, the complete redemption that he provided for us.

And so you know, I guess the easiest place to start out there is John 3, 16, which reads For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

That is probably one of the most profound scriptures in the entirety of the whole Bible, right there wrapped up.

For God so loved that he gave and he made a way for us.

And so the simple salvation is that man sinned and Jesus paid the price for our sins.

He brought us back into right standing so that we can go to heaven.

That is the simple story right there.

There's other pieces of Revelation that can go with that, if you were to read in John, chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

And I'm going to talk about the plan of redemption tonight and then I'm going to take a side trail and chase something down and hopefully I can come back and pick it up where I left off and then we're going to chase something else off to the side because there's a lot of things that happened beyond the simplicity of the salvation message.

So in John, chapter 1, verse 1, it says In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made.

That was made In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.

And then in verse 14 it says and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

And so the Word was there.

In the very beginning the Word was God, it was with God, nothing was done without Him, and that Word was Jesus.

He's the same as God and yet he's the Son of God.

And that Word came to dwell as flesh and live as flesh.

So you know, some people they understand Jesus came to live in the flesh, but they still look at him as a perfect being and he was perfect in all of his ways, but he still had the same inclinations and propensity to sin that everyone who has a flesh body has.

He came and dwelt as a man.

He didn't come and dwell here as a god or as a deity or as a divine being.

He left that somewhere else while he stood as a God or as a deity or as a divine being.

He left that somewhere else while he stood as a man here, so he could demonstrate how it is we're supposed to be and how we can live.

And people say, oh well, jesus was perfect, he got a perfect score, but he lived in the same package that you and I live in, and so he just he demonstrated what it is that he expects us to do and that we, through him, are able to do.

And so the word came and lived as flesh.

Another revelation is the authority and the image of God.

Man was created in the image of God.

Adam was created.

Adam and Eve were both created in the image of God.

We've talked about this before.

The image of God.

You think about God and what that looks like, and God is described in various places in the Bible a lot of masculine characteristics and some feminine characteristics, and no one set of characteristics fully defines the image of God, and so in the beginning God created humankind, created Adam, and then God divided Adam, and from Adam he made Eve, and so now there was one being that was divided, and now you have two beings, and so two beings.

Both have characteristics represented that reflect the image of God, but yet they don't really can't bear the full image of God until they're joined together again in the covenant that God created for marriage.

And so God took a man and a woman that were once one and divided into two, and when they come back together now they can bear the entirety of the image of God.

They have that potential right there, and they can bear children after their kind, and it's not just a flesh being but it's a spirit being that's created.

And so we have the creative power that God instilled in us to create life after our kind, which is in His image still.

And so that you know all through history, really the basics of the spiritual war that we're in is the devil is attacking constantly the image of God, attacking the procreation, attacking the covenant of marriage, attacking the identity of a man and a woman, and that's what he's attacking.

He's not attacking those things, he's attacking the image of God through those things.

And so you know, not everybody gets the revelation of the image of God or the authority of God.

Adam was set here on earth and God charged him to do what To be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue it and have dominion over it.

So God put a God class or a God-like being, something that represented his image, something that he could commune with.

He didn't commune with animals, he communed with man, mankind.

And he put man here to tend to the earth, to tend to the garden and to have dominion over it, to name things, to keep up with it, to take care of it, to be a steward over it and to rule over it.

And of course, you know the story that Adam fell, or mankind fell.

Adam and Eve, it wasn't just one, it was really both of them that fell short, and they lost the authority, they lost the right standing, they lost a lot when they did that.

And so, but immediately, immediately, there was a redemption plan that was put in place, plan that was put in place.

God was not caught off guard, he wasn't caught by surprise.

There it talks about so, right after God confronted them about the sin that had just taken place and also the serpent that had lured them into that sin.

Speaking of the serpent, uh, that had lured them into that sin?

Um, speaking of the serpent, or speaking to the serpent, he, he declared that the, uh, the seed of the woman would bruise his head and he would bruise his heel.

The serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman.

So who is the seed of the woman referring to?

Well, that's all the way down line.

Referring to Jesus.

So that redemption plan.

You know you fouled things up, but my son is going to bruise your head, in other words, his foot is going to be on the head of the serpent.

And so that was instituted.

From the fall of man, there was a redemption plan put into place.

And you think about how long this took, oh gosh, the time between creation and the arrival of Jesus on site.

That's something like maybe 4,000 years or so.

That's a long time.

Intermediary steps were that Before that, god instituted a way for man to cover those sins and a set of rules and guidelines for man to follow whereby they could work and be considered righteous.

You know Noah, he built the ark, he had faith in God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, so different ones throughout the Old Testament, it was accounted to them for righteousness when they did right, it was accounted to them for righteousness, but every time they sinned they had to do another sacrifice, another animal sacrifice, all the way through.

So there was nothing that would take away or redeem them from the sins.

It was simply a practice that would cover the sins under the old covenant.

And so tonight I want to give you a better picture, hopefully a more complete picture, of redemption, with this purpose in mind, that the greatest weakness of humanity has been a sin consciousness.

A sin consciousness is what keeps people in fear, it's what keeps people shying away, it's what keeps people out of the presence of God, and we weren't created for that.

Sin consciousness is the enemy of faith, and you can't have faith in this word if you're under the condemnation of sin, if you're constantly beating yourself up over the sin in your life, over the things that you've done wrong, if you're conscious of that, you'll never be conscious of what redemption did for you and how it got you here and all the things that it provided for.

You'll have partial redemption, you'll live in partial victory.

You'll recognize okay, I've got a ticket to heaven.

Okay, I believe you know my sickness was on that cross too, and so I have a right to healing and we can stake our claim on healing and different things.

But if you still got this sin consciousness in your life and you think about that more than you think about what redemption did, that'll keep you out of the throne room of God, out of His presence.

I mean what God told his son.

This is my talking about Jesus.

This is my beloved son and whom I am well pleased.

What joy would the father have if his kids never came in the room, if they're always hiding behind the couch or ducking through the doorway and hoping, hoping daddy doesn't see him?

God wants to have fellowship with us, and so it's important, it's critical that we have a redemption or a salvation or a covenant consciousness more than a sin consciousness, and the more that sin consciousness falls off, the more you can have what God has provided for.

So that's the intent for tonight.

Some simple things here.

We'll just run through a few things.

We have been made the righteousness of God those in the Old Testament, it was credited to their account, but we're under a new covenant and we have become the righteousness of God.

That's something that we've been made into, for he made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

2 Corinthians 5.21.

We've also been made new, so at the point of salvation, it says that old things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new.

We are new creatures in Christ, something that has never before existed, something that's been created brand new, and so that doesn't really represent the history or who you were before.

That man died.

That person died.

What you are is a new creature in Christ, and so I want you to think about the ways, the various ways that people identify themselves.

People identify as some crazy, stupid stuff now, because they're just insane.

I mean, it's a demonic insanity that afflicts people's minds and blinds them to the truth, and they don't even know what a woman is, what a man is, and they identify as all kinds of stuff.

But I'm not even going to talk about that.

We'll talk about just some simple labels that we can put on ourselves.

You can identify with your nation.

You can say I'm an American, and that would be true.

You could say I'm an Asian American.

We've got the hyphenated.

I'm an African American, I'm a Mexican American.

So then you've got all the hyphenated everythings that fall in the middle.

There you can identify with a political party I'm a Republican, I'm a conservative, I'm a this, I'm a that but the higher level of your identity is who you are in Christ.

I am a new creature in Christ.

Old things have passed away.

I am the righteousness of God in Christ, and so you know we can.

These other labels are kind of a practical daily life thing, because you want to fall into a category.

I get that.

But we need to identify more with each other with regard to what Christ did for us.

We are the family.

We are the family of God.

We are fitly joined together and every joint supplies, and so I want you to relate to each other that way.

And then we need to relate to the world with who we are in Christ and we need to make that normal and not some weird thing.

This right here never changed.

So if this is a graph of God's Word and God that has never changed and there's just a line running through time on a graph, that's normal.

What's not normal is all the variations and changes away from that line, and people think we're weird because we're somewhere close to that line, but really they're the weird ones because they veered off course, and so let's make let's make this normal and let's act like it is.

It is In Galatians, chapter three.

I'm going to throw out a lot of scripture here tonight.

You can write stuff down, but I'm just going to kind of run through some things and not spend a lot of time on any one of these scriptures unless it's critical to the overall message here.

But in Galatians, chapter 3 and verse 26, it's talking about sons and heirs, for you are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many as have been baptized into Christ, to put onto Christ.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Therefore, there is neither Jew nor Greek, so those are more labels, right there.

There's no bond nor free, there's no male nor female, and I'll just go ahead and add the rest of it.

There's no brown, black, white, green, blue, purple, nothing else.

But it says says for you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed according and heirs to the promise.

So let me ask I'll throw a question out there who was the first Jew, abraham Claire's?

She's already got the answers here.

She's already talked about some of this stuff.

She's preached a little bit of it.

So, but yeah, abraham was the first Jew.

Where does the word Jew come from?

Comes from Judah, but Abraham was the first Jew.

He was the first covenant man with God.

God cut the covenant with him and said I'm going to, your family is going to be innumerable.

Your children, your descendants are going to be innumerable.

Your children, your descendants are going to be innumerable and I'm going to cut the covenant with you and I'm going to hold true to the covenant with you and all of those heirs throughout eternity.

And so what happened to us?

We're Gentiles, we're not Jews in the bloodline sense, in the natural sense, but we've been grafted into that, because here it says that we are heirs according to the promise of Abraham's seed.

We are Abraham's seed.

So how did we get there?

We were adopted, we were grafted in to something where we didn't come from, we were cut off of something over here and we were plugged into something over here.

So does that change your identity?

Are you still identifying with what you got cut off from, or do we identify with what we're grafted into?

If you identify what you're grafted into, then we'll take it one step further and this might kind of mess with your mind and maybe your theology, I don't know, you're Jews, we're all Jews.

That still kind of messes with my brain to say that and to think about that.

Um, claire's talked about this.

We've got a friend who's helped the church over the years and and, uh, he's a jewish man according to the natural bloodline.

But he's got some revelation on this subject, um, that those grafted in are in fact jews, because you're grafted into Abraham and his promises, and so there's another little piece of the redemption story that people don't really consider.

So we know that Jesus hung on the cross.

So we know that Jesus hung on the cross.

He took on himself all of our sin, but he was known as somebody who knew no sin.

Him who knew no sin, god made to be sin, so he became sin for us.

He lived in this world, he was surrounded by sin, but sin never touched him.

Now he became sin.

So let's talk about the natural course of sin.

Through humanity, the sin nature was passed from generation to generation to generation, beginning with Adam and Eve, who broke the covenant that they had with God, or the instructions that they had with God, and they became subject to sin.

And now that sin line is being transferred from generation to generation to generation all the way through.

Well, at some point, you know, jesus was born of flesh.

His mother was Mary.

And how is it that he was sinless when he was born?

Because the natural line of sin carries from person to person to person all the way through there.

The answer is he was the seed of God.

God provided the seed, mary provided the package, the flesh, the fleshly clothing, if you will.

So here's a little analogy.

You know how they tell whether a chicken egg has been fertilized or not.

You got to hold that egg up to the light, and if you look at that egg under the light and you don't see anything in there, then it's an unfertilized egg.

If you see blood and vessels forming in there at the appropriate day, then you know that's a fertilized egg.

And so the bloodline comes through the Father all the way through.

The Father provides the blood.

The blood of Jesus came through the Father and it was sinless.

And so he was sinless because of His origin.

God provided the seed, god provided the blood.

That's what makes the blood of Jesus so very special and capable to accomplish the things that it did.

And so, in the Old Testament, god required blood sacrifices to cover the sins of men.

It didn't take it away.

Sins piled up and more sacrifices had to be made, and you see that all through the Old Testament.

When Jesus came into the world, he began to demonstrate what was intended for Adam in the very beginning, because Jesus was somebody who exercised authority and nature listened to him.

He spoke and the wind and the waves obeyed him.

He was somebody who knew exactly where to catch the fish.

He was somebody who knew the thoughts of people.

Nobody was capable of taking his life until he laid it down willingly.

And you know, effectively he would live forever if he didn't lay down his life.

And theoretically, adam was somebody who would be capable of living forever if he lived out according to what God intended.

Jesus took authority over sickness and disease.

He spoke things and things happened, and so the expectation is that in the beginning, adam should have been able to do those kinds of things, that nature would have responded to the voice of Adam because he was given authority by God and all of those conditions.

And so Jesus is a picture of what it should have been.

Let's talk about the, the covenant you had, the old testament covenant that man had to fulfill.

But then that old testament covenant was then fulfilled in its entirety when Jesus showed up on the scene.

Interesting point here is that the one who made the covenant with Abraham when Jesus showed up on the scene.

Interesting point here is that the one who made the covenant with Abraham came down to become the sacrifice.

You think about all those animal sacrifices that had to be made?

And to fulfill that covenant there had to be one perfect sacrifice, and so the one who made the covenant had to come down and become that sacrifice with Abraham.

Think about this If man had to pay the price for that, he would never live again and humanity would cease to exist.

So if man fulfilled the covenant in its entirety, man would never exist going forward because it would require his ultimate death.

So instead, god, through his son Jesus, came down, fulfilled that covenant.

He became the sacrifice of the very covenant that he instituted, isaiah 53,.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him.

Stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we were 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, and so he took all in our place and we have redemption.

We have complete redemption.

Jesus was somebody who suffered.

He operated in a perfect way in a human body that was subject to suffering, so we're all subject to suffering.

You know.

It said that he sweat great drops of blood just the anxiety.

So you know, if you've experienced anxiety in your life, be of good cheer.

He has suffered more anxiety than you can imagine.

We have not yet sweat great drops of blood because of anxiety in our life, and he's overcome.

And so if he's overcome, you can overcome, and what you're going through is not near that.

But you don't have to go through that because he already did.

And so you know, if anxiety is something, there's a way out.

You know, in that moment, in that garden, god sent ministering spirits to tend to Jesus, to tend to his needs.

You want some good news.

There are ministering spirits assigned to you to tend to your needs as well.

Call on them.

It's a promise, it's something that belongs to us, and Jesus was no different.

So he needed tending to.

We need tending to.

Let's look at and this is important.

I just think this is neat some of the feasts, the Jewish feasts that were ordained by God.

He mandated that they celebrate these feasts and it was a remembrance of certain times.

And so you had the Passover, the unleavened bread, the first fruits.

We'll talk about those three.

There are other feasts, but let me just talk about those three briefly.

Those three feasts run either concurrently or they overlap a little bit in the calendar timeline.

So the Passover was where they celebrated their freedom from slavery, from Egypt.

But, more importantly, it was during the plagues where the death angel was going to pass through the land and God warned them to take a lamb and sacrifice this lamb and apply the blood of this lamb to the doorpost and the header of the doorway and that blood would run down and that was a marker for the death angel coming through, that it could not come into that house.

Well, there's more to that Passover story than people know.

There's something called the threshold covenant.

We've talked about it from time to time here.

In the threshold and this is really a pagan practice of the day that was common in that day there was a threshold, a stone threshold in the doorway and there was a groove carved into it.

And when they entered into something called the threshold covenant with someone so it would be like a person-to-person covenant there was a sacrifice done and the two would enter into covenant with each other and when the visitor would come into the house, they would step over that threshold where the blood was.

The blood had been applied to the frames, to the doorpost and the header, and it would run down and it would fill this threshold trough and they could not step into that blood.

They had to step across that blood and come into covenant with that household, declaring that any enemy of this house is an enemy of me and I will defend this house.

And so you think about, now let's go through that again.

So God mandated that they take a lamb, a spotless lamb, and they sacrifice that lamb and then they apply its blood to the doorposts and the top of the doorway and that blood would run down into the threshold.

And then God Himself was coming into covenant with that household, stepping over that threshold into that household, saying this is my house, this is your house and any enemy of your house is an enemy of me and no harm will come near you.

That's the threshold covenant, and so it was a pagan thing of the day that God took and redeemed for his purpose.

It was common in the land, everybody was recognized.

It wasn't a brand new thing, new concept, it was a thing of the day and God used it and the death angel had to pass over that house and couldn't touch that house because God had come into covenant with that house.

Also, part of the Passover, when they sacrificed the lamb, the head of the house would put his hands on the lamb prior to the sacrifice and symbolically transmit the sins of that household onto that lamb before they sacrificed him.

So there was a transmission of sins onto a lamb that was sacrificed and slain for that household.

So that was the Passover, and so God mandated that they celebrate that Passover.

The Feast of the Unleavened Bread was a celebration.

It lasted for about it lasted for seven days and it commemorated the quick departure out of Egypt, and so it was a saving of the Israelites out of bondage and into freedom, and they left so quickly that their bread couldn't rise.

They didn't have time for the bread to rise, and so the unleavened feast and the leavening became a symbol of sin, and so the unleavened bread was, you know, without the sin, and it was a remembrance of God's salvation, bringing them out of bondage.

And so that was the unleavened bread feast.

The first fruits kind of overlapped that period of time and it occurred during Passover week.

There was a whole week of time there and they celebrated the first fruits that God provided.

And so all these three feasts either ran end-to-end or overlapped a little bit in some way, but they were significant to the plan of redemption.

Pentecost came 50 days after the first fruits and that was the celebration of the Ten Commandments.

God gave the law in the Ten Commandments and so that fulfillment of the law occurred with the birth of the church and you had the law, the mechanics of this where the Holy Spirit then came in on the day of Pentecost, the inrushing of the Holy Spirit and filled the believers, and that was the beginning of the church and the beginning of the new covenant being experienced in life.

And so let's go back to what was happening when Jesus, just prior to his crucifixion, jesus was brought into court and Pilate Pontius Pilate, if you recall found him innocent.

Then there was the high priest who had accused the Jewish religious leaders.

The high priest, caiaphas, accused Jesus and called for his death, caiaphas.

And so you've got two entities here.

You've got the Roman side and then you've got the religious leaders of the Jewish side and they really tried not to over.

You know, like the Jews, if it was a Jewish issue, the Romans would be like y'all handle your stuff over here, and if it's a legal thing over here, we'll handle it over here.

Well, there was no legal cause to put Jesus to death according to the Roman law, but according to Caiaphas, he had violated something religious.

And Caiaphas said he's got to be put to death anyway.

So Pontius is like well, y'all handle your stuff.

But Caiaphas could not perform the killing of Jesus because of Jewish law and they were preparing for the Passover, so the Passover feast was happening.

If the Jews were to have taken Jesus' life, they would not have crucified him, they would have stoned him according to Jewish law, but they couldn't do that because they're preparing for this Passover feast.

And so Jesus was found to be innocent.

He was without spot or wrinkle or blemish and he would become the sacrificial lamb of God in that moment.

And he would become the sacrificial lamb of God in that moment, both Pilate, who represents the world, or the Gentiles, and Caiaphas, who represents the religious side, the Jews.

So you've got the world and the Jews.

Both leaders of the world and the Jews had put their hands on Jesus.

So think about the Passover, the symbolically putting your hands on the spotless lamb, transmitting the sins of the world, transmitting the sins of your family, transmitting the sins of the Gentiles and the Jews onto this lamb, the spotless lamb of God, before he is to be sacrificed.

When Pilate pleaded his innocence, the, the people uh said, remember.

They said Barabbas, barabbas, give us Barabbas and and Pilate's like, but he's innocent.

And they said his blood be on us and our children.

In other words, it won't be to your fault.

They're telling Pontius his blood be on us and on our children.

The Jews didn't know it, but they were crying out for the blood of Jesus that would one day save them.

His blood be on us and our descendants.

John, remember John, when he's down by the river baptizing and Jesus is walking up, what did he say?

He said behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world.

He didn't say the Lamb of God who comes to cover the sins of the world, to temporarily sacrifice.

It was the first time he said to come to take away the sins of the world, so that's like a new critical thing.

That happened right then.

Jesus removed the effects of leavening.

During the time of the unleavened feast he removed the effects of the leavening.

Jesus rose on the third day, on the day of the first fruits, when they're to celebrate the first fruits of God, and Jesus was the first fruits of God.

They were celebrating the firstfruits on the day that the firstfruits of God was coming forth under the new covenant.

In the moment that Jesus was being sacrificed on the cross, caiaphas, the high priest was slaughtering the lamb.

At the same time, the spotless lamb of God was being slaughtered on the cross.

The covenant in the natural was being followed by Caiaphas, the high priest.

He's doing the ritual duties of the high priest, but that covenant is being fulfilled in its entirety because God provided the perfect sacrifice for that.

And so when Jesus gave up his spirit, when he yielded up his spirit, he said it is finished.

Was his work finished?

It wasn't, because there were still a lot more things that he had to accomplish.

What was finished was the old covenant.

It is finished, accomplished.

What was finished was the old covenant, it is finished.

And in that moment the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom.

The earthquake, rocks split.

You know, you can imagine Caiaphas over there and he's drawing blood from this little lamb over here.

And there's an earthquake and the skies are are dark and the ground is shaken and rocks are splitting and the temple veil, which was inches thick, was ripped from top to bottom.

And it wasn't because he slaughtered a little lamb over here, it was because it was finished and God left the temple where he had been held behind.

The presence of God had been kept behind because man could not be in the presence of God.

So it was kept behind a veil and for the first time the presence of God was out of the temple.

Thank God, we have a new covenant.

In Ephesians I said there's a lot that he did and I'm just going to run through a few things here.

I'm going to skip over some things in my notes, but in Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 8, it says therefore, he says when he ascended on high, he led captivity, captive and gave gifts.

Ephesians 4:8

To Verse 9, so Jesus on the cross, the perfect sacrifice, said it is finished, the covenant, the old covenant is finished.

And where did he go after that?

He went to hell.

If he didn't go to hell and that gives Christians heart that's something that people don't really understand.

Jesus went to hell.

Yes, he did.

He paid the price in its entirety for all of the sins of the entire world.

People don't die and go to hell because they sinned.

They die and go to hell because they didn't receive what Jesus gave them, but their sin has been paid for in full.

If you've got a ticket to get on a cruise ship and it's been paid for in full and you go and try to pay for it again, why it's free?

Just board the ship.

Colossians 2.15 says having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them.

Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them.

So not only did Jesus go to hell, but he made a public spectacle over every demonic power that came against him in hell and tried to chain him with death and darkness, and the weight of the entire sin of the world was upon him.

And he got up and he threw all of that off and then he made a spectacle of them triumphing over them.

A triumph is another Roman term, a victory celebration where they parade the losing army naked, bleeding, bruised and disarmed behind them through the city, and it's a public spectacle.

It is the ultimate celebration to triumph over something.

So he had the ultimate celebration triumphing over the devil and every demonic power in hell, revelation 118,.

He said I am he who lives and was dead.

And behold, I am alive forevermore.

He didn't come up out of the grave, oh, I'm alive.

He came up out of there with power, making a public spectacle of every demonic power.

I am he who lives and was dead, and behold, I'm alive forevermore.

And that's not all.

I've also got the keys, the keys of hell and death.

He took that with them out of there.

They don't have the keys anymore.

Jesus got the keys, but he wasn't done yet.

So recall Mary.

She's outside the tomb weeping.

She's sad.

She looked in the tomb.

She saw that this stone that was intended to keep anyone from taking his body has been rolled away.

Nobody's got any answers for her.

The body of her beloved Jesus is gone, and she's sad.

She said they've taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.

And when she said this?

This is in John, chapter 20, verse 14,.

John 20:14

When she said this, she turned around and saw 20, verse 14,.

When she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there.

But she didn't know it was Jesus.

She thought maybe it was the gardener, or something Jesus said to her woman why are you weeping?

Who are you seeking?

And she, supposing him to be the gardener, said sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away.

And Jesus said to her Mary.

And she turned to him and recognized that voice rabbi, teacher, and she comes for him.

He said oh, don't touch me, Don't cling to me, I haven't yet ascended to my father.

He descended into hell and he's made it back up to ground zero and he's on his way up to be fully ascended.

He said don't cling to me, I haven't fully ascended to my Father, but go and tell the brethren and say that I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.

And so she had to go, run off and tell the disciples what she had seen.

But his job wasn't done yet.

What was he doing?

He's on his way out of hell, come back up to ground zero and he's on his way up to see his father.

He's going to go hang out with dad and have a good time and tell some stories.

There was more to it.

What do priests do?

What do high priests do?

What was their job?

They take the blood of the sacrifice and they go into the Holy of Holies and they present that blood on the mercy seat.

So God mandated the picture of the temple, the design of the temple, I believe all the articles that were in the temple are things that God has in heaven.

It was an earthly version of what exists in heaven God has in heaven.

It was an earthly version of what exists in heaven.

And so Jesus was on his way up to present his blood from the sacrifice for all the sins of mankind and to place it in the Holy of Holies on the mercy seat, which speaks to our righteousness continually.

We don't have intermittent righteousness.

It speaks to our righteousness continually and forever.

Let's look in Revelation, because this is a fun verse and I like this one, revelation 12.

How many like Christmas?

There's a great Christmas story in here and, by the way, all your nativity scenes are completely wrong.

Let's start in.

We'll read in verse 1.

Now a great sign appeared in heaven and a woman clothed with the sun and the moon, under her feet and on her head a garland of twelve stars.

Then being with child, she cried in labor and in pain to give birth.

And another sign appeared in heaven Behold a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns and seven diadems on his head.

His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to earth.

So you're aware that you know about a third of the angels that were in heaven sided with Lucifer when he lost his place in heaven and came down to earth, and so that's the picture of that.

His tail drew a third of the stars from heaven and threw them down to earth, and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her child as soon as it was born.

So your nativity scenes you might have a couple of camels, a donkey, some sheep, you got a little wooden shack there, a nice star above angels singing with harps.

But if you don't have a dragon sitting there ready to devour the child, your nativity scene is wrong.

That's real.

I'm filling in the missing parts here of your redemption story.

I'm filling in the missing parts here of your redemption story.

Verse 5 says she bore a male who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and His throne.

And the woman fled to the.

So this iswe just talked about her being caught up to God.

He was down in Haiti Mercy seat all that it's wrapped up in a couple of these verses and then the woman fled to the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1,260 days.

So remember Jesus, when he was a young man and his life was being sought after by King Herod, the dragon, ready to devour that child.

All right, god made a way of escape for him.

All right.

So God sent him, god covered him, god sent him to Egypt and they stayed there until that threat was over.

And then war broke out in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail.

Nor was their place found for them in heaven any longer.

The great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the world.

He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven now, salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ has come For the accuser of the brethren.

Throughout history, until this moment described here in Revelation, where he's been cast down, he used to accuse people to God.

Remember, he accused Job to God.

He would accuse God this one's not doing right over here and God was a just God and God had to let the devil do things.

Because they were out of position with God.

They were not in a righteous position.

Now, as soon as they got their sins covered under the blood and did the appropriate sacrifice and got things right again, the devil had to come off of them.

But when they got out of bounds they were fair play for the devil, and so the devil would accuse the brethren to God on a regular basis.

But now that the blood has been placed on the mercy seat, which speaks to our righteousness continually and forever, and the accuser has no more access to God to accuse us to him, the mercy seat speaks.

The blood on the mercy seat speaks to our righteousness forever.

The accuser can't even make the case anymore.

It's been settled, the gavel has come down, the judge has ruled in our favor once and for all.

Y'all ever think about the thief on the cross?

You know there were two there and one was very repentant, and scripture says that there.

Jesus said that you'll be with me in paradise today.

But how can that be?

You'll be with me in paradise today, and this is coming out of Luke 23, verse 43.

Luke 23:43

If Jesus spent three days in the grave?

Well, there's a little issue with punctuation in the Greek.

That didn't have it, and so the translators of the Word would translate things and do their best to apply punctuation and emphasis according to our understanding and our language.

But let me read it to you this way In Luke 23, 43, jesus said to him assuredly I say to you today you will be with me in paradise.

Or, if I read it this way I say to you today comma you'll be with me in paradise.

Now it seems to fit the picture and apply.

What would have happened?

So Jesus promised that man on the cross that he would be with him, not in the same day, but you will be with me in paradise.

Where did he go?

This is still an Old Testament guy.

He hasn't really received salvation.

Jesus hasn't died.

The work hasn't been finished.

The old covenant hasn't been done, yet they're still talking on the cross.

Where did he go?

What happened done, yet they're still talking on the cross.

Where did he go?

What happened?

He went to the same place that people went throughout the Old Testament history.

Let me pause right there and let's look at Jonah.

Jonah, chapter 1, because this is another Bible verse that is common to children's ministry, children's church, and it's just a great storybook thing to tell the kids and show pictures.

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

We all know that from Jonah that God had sent Jonah to speak truth to Nineveh, and Jonah didn't want to go.

He lamented about the people.

They're awful, they're not going to listen to me.

Anyway.

He boarded a ship and went the other direction.

So now he's disobeyed God.

A great storm comes up and the seas are pouring into the ship, and everybody on the ship is wondering who did?

Somebody did something, who did what?

And so they draw straws to see who's responsible for this.

Jonah gets the short straw and then he confesses yes, I'm actually running away from my God, and the only way to get rid of this storm is to pitch me overboard into the water.

And so they did.

They threw him overboard and then God sent a great fish, it says, to swallow Jonah up.

And so we know that Jonah spent three nights in the belly of the whale, no doubt on his knees and praying to God every waking minute.

And then the whale swims closer to shore and deposits him in a pool of vomit on the beach closer to where he was supposed to be.

So that's the story that we know.

Okay, remember when Jesus was being questioned I'm not sure I have the verse in here, but when Jesus was being questioned and they said give us a sign.

And Jesus responded to them about the sign, he said no sign will be, only a wicked and perverse generation seeks after a sign.

But no sign will be given you except for the sign of the prophet.

Jonah will be given you, except for the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Well, jews know more about the story of Jonah than our kids in children's church, because we teach a nice little storybook rendition about what happened.

And so let's look in Jonah and let's begin at the end of chapter 1, verse 17.

So all those things that I described, yeah, they happened, and Jews know this.

And so when Jesus is saying no sign will be given you except and he refers to the sign of Jonah.

They know exactly what he's talking about Because there are different ones who were the type and a shadow of the Messiah.

There was different ones throughout Scripture, throughout Old Testament history that the Jews know about, that were pointing towards the Messiah and they had hope because there were these different ones that were types and shadows of, basically, jesus.

They didn't know Jesus was the Messiah, but they knew that there were types and shadows here that they were looking for.

So the sign of the prophet Jonah.

So in verse 17 in chapter 1, now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

That's true Chapter 2, verse 1,.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the fish's belly and he said I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction and he answered me.

Out of the belly of Sheol, cried I.

Well, wait, what's Sheol?

That's not in the belly of the whale anymore.

You know what Sheol is.

That's an afterlife place.

I don't know that it's actually hell, because there's one.

We'll talk about another reference to Sheol here in a minute.

But it was Sheol.

It was a holding pin for the dead and he cried out of Sheol, out of the belly of Sheol.

I cried and you heard my voice and you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me and all of your billows and waves passed over me.

Then I said yet you have brought me up my life from the pit.

Oh lord, when my soul fainted within me, I remember the lord and you prepared your and my prayer went up to you, uh, into your holy temple.

Those who regard uh.

All right, so in verse 10.

So the lord spoke to the fish and it vomited jonah up on dry land.

But the whole picture there that he's painting is he went to Sheol, he died, he went down to the pit.

The bars of earth closed in around him, he was dead and he was in that belly of a whale.

His body was there for three days.

That is a picture of Jesus.

Jesus died and went to hell.

His body wasn't in the belly of a whale.

But how is it that his body was in the belly of a whale and yet it was not digested?

It was preserved For three days.

It was preserved so that when it was deposited on the beach, his spirit came back into he rose from the dead.

Jonah was dead for three days and his body was preserved.

And he was redeposited in that body and rose from the dead, just like Jesus.

Three days in the grave, spirit went to hell, his body was preserved and he rose again.

So that was a picture of someone who went to Sheol.

Remember we're asking the question about where the thief on the cross went.

You're going to be with me in paradise, but he went to Sheol first.

That was a holding place.

Other places it was called the bosom of Abraham.

In Luke, chapter 16, verse 19,.

Luke 16:19

It says there was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.

But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who laid at his gate, desired day.

But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who, laid at his gate, desired to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.

Moreover, the dogs came to lick the sores.

So it was that the beggar died and was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom.

Another translation of that is into Sheol.

So there was a place in Sheol that actually provided some measure of comfort.

And then there was another place in Sheol that was not so comfortable.

The rich man also died and was buried and being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.

So Father Abraham, the first Jew, was there in Sheol and there was a comfort.

You know, when you've got someone on your bosom, their head is pressed into your chest and you're providing comfort.

On your bosom, their head is pressed into your chest and you're providing comfort to them.

So there was some place in comfort in Sheol and it was known as Abraham's bosom.

And this rich man who died was in the other place and it said.

Then he cried and said Father Abraham, have mercy on me, send Lazarus that I may dip the tip of this finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, likewise Lazarus evil things.

But now he is comforted and you are tormented.

And besides all this, between us and you there is a great fixed gulf so that those who went to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us, and so there's a great gulf between those two places In this area, in this place for the dead known as Sheol.

One is more comfortable than the other, but still there are dead people there.

And so remember Moses being a type and a shadow of Jesus.

He's one of the ones who led Israel out of captivity.

He led them out of there.

In the same way, jesus led captivity captive when he went down to hell and threw all of hell off of him, and then he recovered the keys to death and hell.

Then he went to Sheol and unlocked the people that were there.

He preached the salvation message to them.

They had the promise.

Abraham had a promise.

Think about how many years prior Abraham had a promise and it was counted to him as righteousness because he believed God.

He believed God and yet he died, not having received or seen the promises, but he believed God.

And so Abraham is in a place called Sheol, with all these other people that are piling up around him in Sheol, and then salvation comes.

Jesus shows up on the scene.

He preaches the remainder of the salvation message to them.

They believed, and he led captivity captive out of there and into heaven.

What those people had all throughout the Old Testament, it was basically a promissory note.

What's a promissory note?

It's a note of promise, a guarantee that in a particular time you're going to have something when certain conditions are met.

And that's what they had a promissory note.

And Jesus paid for those promissory notes and led captivity captive out of there, just like Moses led captivity out of Egypt.

And so we're talking about some of the blanks here of redemption, pentecost we haven't really talked about that one.

50 days after the resurrection was the day of Pentecost, and again, that was to celebrate the giving of the law.

But that was the date that the Holy Spirit rushed in.

They got the promise of the new covenant.

On that date Jesus said go into this room and wait until you receive the promise.

And when they received the promise, the church was born, his decision makers were born, and they were empowered with the Holy Spirit.

They were once again authorized.

They had been redeemed from the curse of the law, jesus fulfilling that law.

And now they were in forever right standing because the blood is pleading their righteousness forever.

Now authority has been restored.

Now all the things that Adam was intended to have have been restored, and people just need to be convinced of what they have.

They need to recognize what they have, and so I hope, hearing about the redemption plan and how all of that was instituted all these years prior, 4,000 years prior to Jesus showing up on the scene, it started.

The timer started ticking, things started happening, people started stepping up on the scene.

There were types and shadows of Jesus, all pointing to the coming of the Messiah.

Then the Messiah came, then he fulfilled the old law and said it is finished and he went down to hell and he paid the price and he took the keys to death and hell and the grave and he led captivity captive out of there.

And he was on his way up when he was stopped by Mary and he said don't touch me, I've still got to carry this blood to the Holy of Holies and put it on the mercy seat where it speaks to the righteousness of humanity forever.

And the accuser can't accuse you anymore.

He's been cast down.

And then we get the fulfillment of the promise of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

Instead of the giving of a law, a rigid law, we've got freedom through the Holy Ghost, and so that's the plan of redemption.

I'm out of time tonight.

We could go on, but I just I want you to be encouraged with that.

I want you to be a little more conscious of what God did, what that plan looks like, the spectacular plan that he put in place and what it accomplished for you, and how he restored us back to the original condition.

Everything that Adam was meant to have is available to us right now, and so you got to be more aware of that than any sin or any past thing that's in your life.

Let's be redemption conscious, amen.