The God-Man, Our Mediator

known for his unique ability to simplify profound truth so that it can be applied to everyday life, Adrian Rogers was one of the most effective preachers, respected Bible teachers, and Christian leaders of our time. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. Do you find in God's Word the book of Job chapter 9? We're thinking on this subject, the God-man, our mediator, the God-man, our mediator. Job chapter 9. Now, if you're familiar with the book of Job, you know that the book of Job is the story of a good man who suffered. And people study the book of Job and they get help and wisdom from the book of Job because the book of Job helps to answer this question. Why do bad things happen to good people? But that's only one of the questions that the book of Job answers.

The book of Job answers another question and there's another real theme in the book of Job. Not only why do bad things happen to good people, but listen carefully. How can good things happen to bad people? That also is a theme in the book of Job. How sinners like we can be forgiven and go to heaven.

How can good things happen to bad people? Look, if you will now in Job chapter 9, verses 1 and 2. Then Job answered and said, I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with God?

That is a big question, is it not? How can sinners such as we be just and righteous and holy with God? You see, the problem is this, that God is so holy and we are so sinful. You might just fast forward to Job chapter 15, for example, and see what Eliphaz had to say about your sinfulness and my sinfulness beginning in verse 14. He says, what is man? That he should be clean and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous.

Behold, he that is God putteth no trust in his saints. Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water. Abominable, filthy man drinks iniquity like he drinks water.

Is that not true? Take today's newspaper, any newspaper and look at the entertainment section and the way they want you to see the entertainment is as sexy, lusty, filthy, shocking, exotic, sinful. That's the way they titillate the crowd.

They say, here is something, come and have a drink of this. We have an insatiable appetite for sin and we drink it like water. And so man is a sinner. He is a sinner by birth. Therefore he's a sinner by nature. Therefore he's a sinner by choice. Therefore he's a sinner by practice. He is a sinner habitually. He is a sinner.

There's not a man, not a woman, not a boy, not a girl in this building who is honest, who would stand and say, I have not, and I do not sin. We are sinners. And we have the behavioral psychologist today who tried to explain away sin and they say that man is ill, not evil. Man is sick, not sinful. Man is weak, not wicked, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We try to explain it away by environment, our glands, but the Bible calls it sin.

And it has well been said that most of the people in America are ego maniacs strutting their way to hell thinking they're too good to be damned. But the problem is how can man be just with God? Because man is so sinful, but not only is man so sinful, God is so holy. Look, go back to the verse that we began with in chapter nine, Job chapter nine, and look in verse 30.

Job says, if I wash myself with snow water and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me. That is God. If I do the very best I can in self reformation, if I get the purest water and scrub myself from head to toe, yet dear God, you see me wallowing in the gutter.

You see me as I really am. Man is so sinful and God is so holy. If you had to get one word to describe God and thank God, no word could describe God and all words cannot describe God. But if you had to say what word more than any other epitomizes the nature of God, the character of God, contrary to popular opinion, it would not be love. Now God is love, infinite, matchless, measureless, glorious love.

I do not diminish the love of God. But if you had to get one word that would characterize God, it would be holy. God is holy. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.

Now think about it. Man is so sinful and God is so holy. How can you get a holy God and sinful man together? That's what the book of Job is about. Not only why do bad things happen to good people, but how can good things happen to bad people? How can man be just with God? How can we get right with God?

God is holy and man is sinful and man cannot lift himself to God because he's sinful and God will not lower himself to man because God is holy. Now that's a problem. That is the problem. The book of Habakkuk says that God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.

So you have the problem. Now in the book of Job, Job had three friends and these three friends tried to answer Job's question. How can man be just with God?

And the question is a good question, but they give the wrong answer to the right question. And what you're going to find is three satanically inspired answers to this question and they're answering the right question the wrong way. Isn't that clever of the devil? You see, the devil is not against religion. As a matter of fact, the devil uses religion to dam and to doom souls. And the first temptation in the garden of Eden was not to be ungodly, it was to be godly. He said, do this and you'll be like God. That's what satan said to Eve. It wasn't a temptation to fall down away from God. It was a temptation to step up toward God, only do it the devil's way.

It's very interesting, isn't it? Do you see how clever the devil is? You see, listen friend, the devil is the master liar and the best lies sound the most like the truth.

And every good lie has some truth in it. A clock that doesn't even run is right twice a day. I want to ask you a question talking about clocks.

What is more dangerous? A clock five minutes wrong or a clock five hours wrong? Now you say, well, obviously a clock five hours wrong, but not so. When you look at a clock that's five hours wrong, you say, Hey, that is wrong. Somebody tell me what time it is.

But you look at a clock five minutes wrong, you miss your plane. You see, the devil is a very clever liar. And so he gets these lies that are very close to the truth, but yet so far away from the truth. And what happened is this, Job says, how can man be just with God? God is so holy. I am so sinful. How?

I can't come up to him and he won't come down to me. So you have three of Job's friends who were false prophets who tried to answer that question. And I want to show you how they try to answer that question. The first was a man named Eliphaz. And you find his answer in Job chapter four. Go back to Job chapter four and look, if you will, please beginning in verse 12.

Here's what Eliphaz had to say about this question. Now he says in verse 12, now a thing was secretly brought to me and mine ear received a little thereof in thoughts from the visions of the night when deep sleep fall on men. Fear came upon me and trembling, which made my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up. It, that is the spirit, stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof. An image was before mine eyes.

There was silence. And I heard a voice saying, and I'm going to leave off what the voice said, because that's not a part of my purpose at this point. Eliphaz says, Job, let me tell you what happened to me. Let me give you my experience.

Maybe it will help you, Job. He says the other night when I was in my bedroom, he said, I was aware of a presence in the room. He said, I, I was moved with fear. I was in the middle of my sleep. I woke up and someone or something was in that room with me.

There was a spirit in that room. I opened my eyes. I, I looked at this thing as it materialized.

I, I could not quite make the form out of it. And this being, this thing that came into the room, it spoke to me. It reveals some things to me. It gave me some inside information.

And Job, I'm going to pass that on to you. Maybe that'll help answer the question, how can you be just with God? Now, I don't know about you, but folks, I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and find somebody or something like that in my bedroom. I'm like that man said he was walking through the cemetery and he thought he saw a ghost. And he said, he put out his hand to see if the ghost was there. And the ghost wasn't there. Then he said, the ghost put out his hand to see if he was there. He said, I wasn't there either.

That's the way I would be to be in this kind of a situation. Some weird, eerie, spooky thing was in the bedroom where the life has. But what does he do? He takes what this thing, this spirit says, and he passes it on to Job as bona fide religious information. Now folks, that's the way of demonism. What was in this bedroom was a demon spirit. Now you say, pastor, you sure it wasn't God?

Yes. Because later on in the book, God says, these men have not spoken that which was of me. It wasn't of God. Listen to what the Bible says in first John chapter four, verse one, beloved, believe not every spirit, but try or test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are going out into the world. And you know, you and I believe we're living in the latter days. And first Timothy chapter four and verse one says, now the spirit that is the Holy spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

That's what happened here. Eliphaz meets a seducing spirit who gives out doctrines of devils. Now what is happening today is this. We're seeing a fulfillment of that passage that says in the latter days, some shall depart from the faith. Hell is having a holiday. And as we are getting closer to the end of an age, I believe, Satan is like a caged animal.

He's in a corner and he's letting loose with all of the artillery of hell. And we're seeing more new age demonism than we've ever had before. We're seeing cults as Dr. Lee, the former pastor of this church said, isms that ought to be wasms. Cults that are coming on and are spreading like wildfire. I was in the airport down in Tampa. I saw one of these cultists, one of these demon inspired girls there.

She was, I watched her, a combination of sex and false doctrine is seducing these sailor boys out there. It infuriated me. I got up from my seat. I just kind of hoped that she would come to me to talk to me, but she wouldn't come to talk to me.

She's talking to these young boys about 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. I was too old and ugly. I tried to get her to come to me. Finally, I just went to her.

I said, may I say something to you? She said, what? I fascinize on her and I said, Jesus Christ is Lord. When I said that, she screamed a maniacal scream, sounded like a banshee. It went all over the airport.

I thought I was going to get arrested. The very name of Jesus, the very name of Jesus, the Lordship of Christ was a thought that she could not abide. Demon spirits. We have today new age syncretism. What is the new age? It is an amalgamation, a syncretism of all of the world's religions into a mystical worldview. One new age has said this, we honor the truth and beauty of all the world religions, believing each to have a seed of God, a kernel, now listen to this, of the spirit that unites us. And there is a spirit that unites them. And that spirit of course is the same spirit that Eliphaz met in the bedroom. And we have today many of you who are Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and Episcopalians and good, honest, God-fearing people still dabble in astrology.

God pity you. That's of the devil. Do you know what astrology is? Astrology, astralogos. Astra, the stars, logos, the word. It is the word of the stars as a substitute for the word of God.

Don't mess with it. And then there are many people, I see it advertised in our papers today, in school courses, paid for with tax money, transcendental meditation. All that is is Hinduism and yoga and these other things that have been re-baptized, repackaged and sent over here and paid for with your tax money. Meditation. You're going to put yourself in a trance. You say, well, Pastor Rogers, I just believe that if I put myself in a trance, I'll make contact. You will. It'd be like saying at nighttime, I'm going to go to bed, unlock all the doors, all the windows and go to sleep and see if I make contact. You will.

Something will come in. I mean, you put yourself in a neutral spot and make yourself open to the devil. Friend, I'm telling you, the Bible says, guard your mind.

Keep it with all diligence. You say, are you against meditation? No, but when you meditate, you don't put yourself in neutral. You fasten yourself upon the word of God.

Meditate on the word of God. But what we have in these last days, folks, is the way of Eliphaz, which is demonism. Let me tell you one of the biggest ways that the devil and this new age mysticism is coming in. Did you know it's through the drug culture? Did you know that drugs are more than just physiological? They're psychological and spiritual. Did you know that in the Bible, the use of drugs is called sorcery?

Revelation chapter 21 and verse eight, but the fearful and the unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and all idolaters shall have their part in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. And in that litany of wickedness is the word sorcery. Young's Concordance says that the word sorcery is a translation of the Greek word pharmacia. It's the word we get pharmacists from. There's nothing wrong with pharmacy.

There's nothing wrong with medicine. But from time immemorial, people have used drugs to put man's mind into a stupor to enable him or to cause him to lose control and open himself up to demon spirits. David Wilkerson, who has worked with drug addicts and devil worshipers for many years.

I don't agree with everything David Wilkerson says. He's my brother in Christ, however, but here's what he did say. He said, I have yet to see a person who is into devil worship or demon worship, who did not first of all open his mind to mystical experiences through the use of drugs. I have yet to see a man who is into devil worship, demon worship, who did not first of all open his mind up to mystical experiences through the use of drugs. It is instant heaven that leads to everlasting hell.

That is one way. Now, of course, not everybody's going to buy into demonism and satanic revelation. So the devil's very clever. So he gets another one of Job's friends to give to Job and answers how a man can be just with God, not only Eliphaz, but Bildad. Go to chapter eight now and hear what Bildad had to say.

In chapter eight, Job chapter eight. Now I'm going to cut to the chase and just give you the heart of what he had to say in verse eight. He says, For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, that is, of our forefathers, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers. For we are but of yesterday and know nothing, because our days on earth upon earth are a shadow. That is, we just got here.

We're not dry behind the ears. We haven't had a chance to know all that we ought to know. So he says, go back to the former age, go back and blow the dust off some of those volumes in the library and begin to read the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Notice in verse 10, shall not they teach thee and tell thee and utter words out of their heart? Now, what is the appeal here? The appeal here is not to demonism and satanic revelation. The appeal here is to humanism and sophisticated reason. Humanism.

What is this man saying? He's saying, Job, if you want to learn the answer, you need to go and study the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Look to the ancients. Look to the philosophers. Look to the wise, the high, the mighty.

We just got here. Our days are but a shadow. What you need to do is to go back and go to those big volumes of wisdom, blow the dust off, get educated. I don't know who Job's fathers were and I don't know what were in the libraries of his day, but I know who our fathers are. Dave Breese has written a book, Five Men Who Rule the World from Their Graves. And indeed he's right about this. There are five people that we, all of them in the 19th century that are ruling the 20th century from their graves.

Let me just tell you who those five men are. Number one, Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin, who in 1809 hatched the egg that poisoned the scientific world, who taught us about evolution.

There's no way to calculate the damage that is done. And we have children who are acting like animals because they've been taught that they come from animals. You say, Adrian, are you against science?

No. Evolution is a philosophy, not a science. I studied science. I know what the scientific method is. I'm not a scientist, but I know that in science, you take a theory, a postulate, you go into the laboratory to see whether it's true or false. But the evolutionists, they take an idea, say it is true, and then they move heaven and earth to try to prove it. But there is no proof. Dr. Newton Tomasson, a physiologist for the Atomic Energy Commission has said this, scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men. And the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution, we do not have one iota of fact.

Now get that in your head. They cannot believe in the miracle. They cannot believe in the miracle of creation.

And yet they are willing to accept millions of miracles. One life form becoming another life form, becoming another life form, becoming another life form. Not one demonstrable life form has ever been shown to come from one to another. Where are the fossils? They talk about the missing link. They're all missing.

They don't even have a chain, much less a missing link. Go back and check your father's, check Charles Darwin, check Serenade Kierkegaard. He was born in 1813. He hatched the egg that poisoned the religious world. You say, I've never heard of him.

Well, he's a fine man in many ways. In his own way, I believe love God. But he was the father of neo-orthodoxy. And what is neo-orthodoxy?

You say, I never heard of it. Well, neo-orthodoxy is a system of truth that says, or system rather, that says the Bible is not empirical truth. Not that the Bible is truth, but the Bible contains truth. It becomes true to you when you have an existential I-thou relationship with the Bible.

You say, what does that mean? Well, it means dear friend, that people no longer believe that the Bible is the fixed, inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. There was a time when preachers would stand in the pulpit and say, the Bible says, then they started saying the church says, and now they just say, well, it seems to me. That's existentialism. That's our fathers, no absolute truth.

The Bible is not the Word of God, just contains the Word of God. And then there's another man who poisoned our world. His name is Karl Marx, born in 1818.

He hatched the egg that poisoned the political world. He said that man is just simply the tool of dialectical materialism. Karl Marx, the father of communism, was an atheist. And being an atheist, he had no moral absolutes. Atheism is a vital part of communism. When Karl Marx was asked to give his life's goal, he said it is to dethrone God and to destroy capitalism.

At least he had a goal. He knew where he's going, dethrone God, destroy capitalism. Now, Soviet communism has imploded. It's shown itself to be a bankrupt system. They've got all these textbooks. I'll tell you where they can get rid of them.

Sell them to the universities in the United States of America, because it's still being taught over here. And you'd be surprised on our major campuses how many thoroughgoing socialists and communists are indoctrinating our children today with our tax money. These men ruling the world from their graves. Another man was Sigmund Freud. He's the man who poisoned the psychological world.

He was born in 1856. He's what we call the father of psychoanalysis. And what did Sigmund Freud teach? He taught that the human race is motivated chiefly by pleasure, primarily eroticism, that everything begins and ends with sex. And so he is the philosopher, the patron of extreme permissiveness, that little children, you just need to let them unfold. If you resist or rebuke them, if you tell them that fornication is wrong, adultery is wrong, sodomy is wrong, perversion is wrong, lesbianism is wrong, you're liable to give them a little neurosis. So what you do is you just let them unfold. And this is extreme permissiveness. And we see this in society today. Again, when nobody is evil, they may be ill. Nobody is wicked.

They may be weak. So if little Throckmorton wants to cut the leg off the dining room table, you just keep the saw sharp so he won't frustrate himself. Little Throckmorton, he'll grow up to be wonderful. He'll grow up to black your eye.

Now, let me tell you something for you. That thought, that system is in the world today. Another man of our fathers who has poisoned the world today is a man named John Dewey. John Dewey poisoned the educational world. He was born in 1859 and John Dewey was a humanist. You say, what is humanism? That's a fancy way for saying atheism.

The names have been changed to protect the guilty. John Dewey was the father of progressive education. And he had the idea that ideas and methods are more important than fixed truth. That's why we have today something called outcome-based education, rather than teaching children to add and subtract, read and write, and to know history as it is supposed to be known. Where did that come from?

It came from the accumulated wisdom of the ages, but it's belched out of hell really. And today, look at what is happening in education. Look at art. I was listening to a program the other day, art literature. Kids are no longer studying Shakespeare. They're studying eroticism and homosexual literature and so forth to get a PhD. And in art, you can go to an art gallery.

You can't tell whether it's a sunset or a scrambled egg. Two little boys in a modern art gallery were looking at some of that stuff and one of them said to the other one, we better get out of here before somebody thinks we did it. That's the progressive education that we have here today. This kind of thinking has sabotaged the Bible, humanized God, deified man, minimized sin, glorified greed, glamorized sex, and liquorized society.

That's the wisdom of the ages. How can man be just with God? Eliphaz says demonism. Bildad says humanism. Zophar says legalism.

Go back, look if you will in chapter 11 now. Here's another one of these false answers. How can man be right with God? Beginning in verse 13. Here's what Zophar says to old Job. Job's heart wants to know how can I a sinner be right with God?

Here's what Zophar says. If thou prepare thine heart and stretch out thine hands toward him. If iniquity be found in thine hand, put it far away. And let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles. For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot. Thou shalt be steadfast and shall not fear. Now what he's simply saying is this. Job, what you need is religion.

What you need is to do good. You see, some people are not going to be caught up in satanic revelation. Other people are not going to be caught up in sophisticated reason. But a great number of people are going to be caught up in sterile ritualism. Sterile ritualism, ritual, religion, legalism.

What he's saying to this man is this. He says, Job, what you need is the religion of form and self-effort. What you need to do is to prepare your heart. That's meditation.

What you need to do is stretch out your hands. That's ceremony. What you need to do is to put away sin. That is reformation. Meditation, ceremony, reformation. Meditation, ceremony, reformation.

May I submit to you that in America today, millions are trudging to churches doing those three things and will leave with empty hearts. They're not into demonism. They are not into rationalism. They're into ritualism.

I mean, they have a form of godliness, but they do not have the power thereof. Augustus, top lady, well said it when he said, could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no languor no? These for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. Well, old Job, old Job won't buy any of this. Go back to Job chapter nine. Job was a man after God's heart. And so in Job chapter nine, look again in verse one. Then Job answered and said, I know it is so of a truth, but how shall man be just with God? For if he will contend with him, he cannot answer him, one of a thousand. He said, I couldn't answer one out of every thousand questions God asked me. He's God.

I'm a man. And then skip on down, if you will, and look at verse 32. Here's what he says, for he, God, holy, holy God, for he is not a man as I am that I should answer him and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daze man betwixt us that he might lay his hand upon us both. Now, if you have a different translation, you may read the word umpire, or you may read the word middleman, or you may read the word arbitrar, or you may read the word mediator. I prefer the word mediator as the best.

And neither is there any mediator between us that he might lay his hand upon us both. You know what Job says? Job says, oh God, you're holy. I'm sinful. I need you.

God, I can't argue with you. God, if you bring me into court, I can't answer one out of a thousand questions. I'm a sinner. I need somebody to go between. I need somebody to bring me to you. I need somebody who can lay his hands upon us both. I need an arbitrar. I need a middleman. I need a daze man.

I need a mediator. Do you know who he was crying for? Do you know who he was longing for? You know his name.

Don't you say it. Jesus, Jesus. Listen, take your Bible and turn to first Timothy chapter two, verses five and six. Take your Bible and turn to first Timothy chapter two, verses five and six. Listen to it.

Listen to it. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men. The man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. Neither is there a daze man between us that he might lay his hand upon us both. I need a mediator. Let me tell you what a mediator must be. Number one, a mediator has to be qualified.

Not just any mediator would do. Now here's God and here's man. Suppose a king and a beggar were in a controversy and the king is bringing the beggar into lawsuit. And the beggar says, I need somebody to speak.

I need a mediator. And the king says, all right, I'll get another king. And the beggar says, no, I don't want you two kings to try to determine my fate. And the beggar says, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll get another beggar and let him be a mediator.

The king says, you two beggars are not going to gain up on me. I need a mediator. I need somebody who can lay his hands upon us both.

Who is that? That my friend is the one mediator between God and man given to us in 1 Timothy chapter two, verse five. And his name is Jesus. And how is Jesus qualified? Because Jesus is both God and man at the same time. God sent forth his son made of a woman. God sent forth his son, but made of a woman. Listen, Jesus did not have his beginning at Bethlehem. He had his birth at Bethlehem. He existed forever. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God.

Co-equal and co-eternal with God the father, but he stepped out of heaven and came to this earth. He became a mediator and he became a man. Don't get the idea that Jesus was not a man.

Don't get the idea somehow that Jesus was God only dressed up as a man. I was listening to the news. The heard about a man out in Utah was in prison, thought he'd get out of prison, had a good plan. He got a great big crate, addressed it, sealed himself up in it, had himself nailed in it, put a dress on the outside to ship himself home. And he's on the inside and they take this crate thinking it's legitimate. It was all the way outside the prison with this thing.

When somebody bumped it and he said, ouch. And so he's back in prison. That was just a man inside of a box, but Jesus was not God just simply inside of a man. That was not a package. He became a man.

Now listen, don't ever forget this. He wasn't just masquerading as a man. He wasn't just wearing a man's suit. He became a man. As much a man as any mother's child in this building is a man. He wept, he slept, he hungered, he cried, he hurt. He was a man, a man.

Why? Because the Bible tells us in first Corinthians, since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Our dominion was lost by a man, legally lost.

It must be legally regained by a man. No spirit can die. A man must die. There are wages in his death. Christ became a man that he might die upon that cross, but he had to be a sinless man. He could not have been a son of Adam because in Adam all die. He had to be the son of God. So therefore he had to be born of a virgin because a slave of slaves, a son of slaves is a slave himself. And Adam was a slave to Satan. But Jesus was the son of God and he stepped out of heaven.

Listen to me, listen to me. He was man of very man. He could lay his hand upon Job, but he was God of very God. He could lay his hand upon the father. He was as much God as God the father, everything that God has, says, and does, Jesus has, says, and does. And yet everything that Job felt, Jesus felt.

He was the day's man who could lay his hand upon us both. You see, between God and man, there is a chasm eroded by sin. Over here is holy God.

Over here is sinful man. Here is the chasm between the two. The Lord Jesus Christ says, I am going to bridge that chasm. And so over here, he puts down the foundation of his deity, very God of very God. Over here, he puts down the foundation of his humanity, very man of very man, as much man as if not God at all, as much God as if not man at all, not half God and half man, but all God and all man, never another like him, the God man, the God man. And having put down a foundation here and put down a foundation there, then the God man builds a bridge between God and man and man and God. And that bridge is made of the rough-hewn timbers of a cross.

Listen to this. There is one God and one mediator between God and man himself, man, the Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. By the way, the hyper-Calvinists had difficulty with this. A ransom for all. He died for all. People say, am I one of the elect? Let me tell you something, friend, the elect or whosoever will.

People have been arguing about that for two millenniums and I settled in three seconds. Whosoever will, you want to be saved, come. And Jesus said, him that cometh on me I'll in no wise cast out. And with the blood of his cross, he bridged the chasm between holy God and sinful man. And he, the mediator, the God man, built a bridge that demonism and humanism and ritualism cannot build.

Because all those bridges fall under their own weight. Do you know Jesus? Let me tell you something. A mediator must be accepted by both parties. A mediator must be given absolute authority.

A mediator must have both parties in mind. He must be totally just. Do you know anybody else other than Jesus who can fit that bill?

I don't. How can man be just with God? His name is Jesus. No wonder the angel said, thou shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sin. If I had a thousand lives, I'd give every one of them to Jesus.

And I want you to know him. Why don't you say, Lord, I cannot lift myself to you in my sinful state. And you cannot come down to me until something is done with my sin. So now, now I believe that there's one who can bridge the gap between me and you.

And his name is Jesus. Pray like this, Lord Jesus, come into my heart today. Give me the courage not only to receive you, but to make it public. In your name I pray. Amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.